


Come To Me

by JStevens



Series: Coming Together [1]
Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-09
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-08-14 06:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 112,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8002501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JStevens/pseuds/JStevens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been nearly four years now, and Emil is fine. Emil is great, in fact. Maybe there are still some nights when he can't sleep--and half a year of his life that he can't allow himself to remember--but he's moved on from the past. He's happy with his life now. He's a success. He has a beautiful girlfriend who wants to marry him. How else could you describe such a life but happy? What else could he possibly be missing?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Come To Me

**Author's Note:**

> I began writing a reunion fic that would take place sometime after the expedition covered in SSSS. It wanted to go in a few different directions, though. The short and fluffy version is the one titled One Time. This is the "darker" version, which tore itself free from that story to become its own tale. If you read One Time, you'll still spot the similarities here and there. Feel free to listen to Elliott Smith's greatest hits while reading, because that is what I've been listening to on repeat as I cobble together this tale of a man slowly falling to pieces--so that he can finally try to become whole once more.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It's starting to come to me_  
>  _I didn't know about, I hadn't figured it out_  
>  _But it's starting to come to me now_  
>  _A little bit too late_  
>  \- Come To Me, Elliot Smith

**PART ONE**

**1**

The snow was growing heavier, and Emil tucked his chin deeper into the new scarf looped around his neck. It had been an early gift from Anna. The wool was soft as silk against his skin, and clearly very expensive. Not only that--she'd had his initials embroidered on one corner, along with a small stylized flame. Time and thought must have gone into the gift, and now he was feeling guilty about the cookbook he had picked out for her mere hours before they'd gotten on the train to Mora. The bookshops in Östersund weren't the best stocked, so he had browsed the section for no more than a minute or two before grabbing the one with the best-looking cover and hurrying to the cash register.

_She's always saying she loves cooking, though._ He looked into a shop window as they walked past, studying the confections on display.  _If I can get away for a bit, maybe I can buy her a new pan or something here in Mora. I just have to find an excuse before the family dinner tomorrow..._

Emil felt the corner of his mouth tighten. The family dinner. That family was exactly why he was freezing his ears off out here on the streets instead of sitting in front of a toasty fire somewhere--or, even better, tucked up in his own cozy apartment in Östersund. He'd tried suggesting to Anna that they spend jul at home this year, or only come down for a single night at most. And yet here he was--two nights into a week-long stay at Anna's parents' home in Mora. He let a silent sigh slip through his lips, too quiet to be heard on the bustling street, and caught sight of their paired reflection in the window glass.

The couple he saw mirrored in the window looked perfect together, walking hand-in-hand and illuminated by the yellow electric lights that ran along every major street in outer Mora.  _You two will have the most beautiful children._ Anna's mother probably hadn't been wrong, but after two full days of hints and winks about her hopes that he and Anna would soon have a happy announcement to share with them, that comment had been the last straw for Emil. At the first chance he'd gotten, he'd suggested to his girlfriend that they go take a stroll through the city in all its holiday glory. But it was minus twelve centigrade according to the last thermometer he'd seen on the side of bank a few blocks back, and the seasonable flurries were quickly becoming a serious snowfall. Still Emil couldn't quite bring himself to turn back around toward Anna's childhood home. Out in the freezing air, he felt like he could breathe deeply for the first time in days.

Anna squeezed his hand, and he gave her an absent smile. At least she understood. She might not let him get out of visiting her family, but she didn't blame him for chafing at it. And she hadn't once said a word about how cold it was as he dragged her halfway across the city, though her cheeks were red and shining from the cold. She was a good girlfriend. He knew he was lucky to have her.

"Should we head back?" he asked at last. It was getting late anyway. Even if they turned back now, they could insist that they needed to turn in for the night and it would be true. That thought brought some relief, and he managed a sheepish smile as he admitted, "The snow is really starting to come down now."

"Oh, I suppose we should," she agreed, her pink lips twisting into knowing smile. "Though it _is_ nice walking out in the city together. Östersund really doesn't compare." She let go of his hand to loop her arm through his, hugging his elbow tightly. "Have you thought any more about the recruitment job here in Mora? You wouldn't have to work in the field, and the pay they were offering was a real step up, wasn't it? Plus, we would get to live in Mora!"

Emil didn't answer. They'd talked about it before. Anna never pushed too hard, but she'd made it clear enough that she wanted him to take the job. He'd first been offered the position when he'd returned from Denmark nearly four years ago. The corps had obviously wanted to make him some sort of poster boy for the cleansers. He was the first Swede to take on the Silent World and survive, and he had come from among their own ranks. But refusing their offer had probably been the easiest task he'd tackled while readjusting to life in the relative safety of Sweden. The nightmares hadn't been as courteous as the recruiters--the latter had left him alone after a single "no," while the former had refused to leave him for months.

Now that the dreams had mostly abandoned him, it was the recruiters who were making a reappearance after all these years. They'd sent him a letter when he'd become a lieutenant the year before, congratulating him on his promotion and renewing their offer. When he'd been named a captain this summer, their congratulations and offer had both grown quite dramatically in scope.

Anna didn't seem to understand why he still refused. It probably wouldn't make sense to someone else. The amount they were offering was ridiculous for someone his age, especially considering how easy the work would be. She couldn't believe that he truly preferred a day spent sweating outdoors, his face half-broiled by the heat of the flames, to the idea of smiling at ignorant kids as he recounted tales of his "bravery" in the Silent World. But that was fine. Anna knew next to nothing about what had happened in the Silent World, and it was better that way.

Instead of responding to her question, Emil abruptly asked, "Your sister was arriving tonight, wasn't she?"

Anna blinked, trying to follow the sudden change of subject. "My...sister? Well, yeah, that's what Mom said." She peered closely at him, leaning forward to get a better look at his expression. She was quite aware of how much he hated it when her sister was around. Once Anna and her sister were together, they slipped into a world of their own. Everything they said was a reference to some shared memory or inside joke. Hardly a sentence ever made it to its conclusion, because the other either jumped in to finish it or they both burst out laughing. When Anna occasionally tried to include him, explaining some backstory or asking him what he thought about some bit of family gossip, it just grated worse. He honestly preferred being left out altogether, and letting his mind wander, if he couldn't find an excuse to physically leave the room.

"I dragged you out like this, so you didn't even get the chance to meet her tonight." He ran a hand through his hair, making the damp blond locks stand on end. He hadn't bothered with a cap when he'd practically fled from the house, and the snow had been steadily melting on his head. "I'm sorry. I know you're always saying you don't feel like you get enough time to talk, just the two of you, during these big family events."

It was mostly an excuse, but like all the best ones, it was based on some truth. Emil did feel bad about running away that night, but only because it was so pathetic. He put on a charming smile, shoving down the bitter feelings somewhere that Anna would never see them. "Why don't you two go out and fika or something tomorrow morning? Before everyone arrives for the julbord. Don't worry about me. I'll just kill time around town or something."

He saw the way Anna's brow furrowed. But was she upset that he was avoiding talking about the job? Or did she realize that he was trying to get rid of her the next day? If she did realize that his generous offer was not all that altruistic, he would be in trouble. It took little imagination to guess why a man might want to go out without his girlfriend on the morning of December 24. She would know that he was buying her a last-minute gift and would assume that he'd forgotten entirely. _At this rate,_ _I might to have to spring for something better than pans._

Emil wondered if it was time that he just gave in and bought her the ring she and her mother both wanted.  _We've been together over two years. She's a great woman. We almost never fight. So what am I waiting for?_  He didn't know--except that he didn't know that he wanted to get married either.

Grimacing internally at the thought of sparkling jewelry and price tags with an indecent number of zeros marching across them, he almost didn't notice at first the niggling thought tickling at the edge of his consciousness. But there was something demanding his attention. It was like a child's puzzle, where you had to spot the hidden object that didn't belong in a picture. Something didn't fit into his picture of the crowded shopping district in Mora. There was something that didn't belong in the cheery light pouring from the windows on either side of the street or beneath the small bulbs strung overhead and crisscrossing the road. Then, among the familiar chatter, he heard it: a strange, melodic language that he had all but forgotten. Someone was speaking Finnish.

He turned and searched the crowd. Out of all the thousands of Finnish people alive in the world, there was no reason to think that it might be one of the four in total that he had ever met--except that the voice sounded exactly like he remembered. His eyes hunted through the groups huddled together under the heavy black sky. Every other head was covered in a cap or hood, and clouds of steamy breath hovered around the faces of the people. His feet slowed and Anna stumbled to a stop beside him.  _There._ Between an old couple and a group of four teenagers, he saw a pair straight out of his past. The woman was short and round, made even rounder by the thick jacket she wore. The man beside her was at least half a head taller and thin as a twig. He slunk through the streets like some nocturnal creature, twisting slightly to keep from bumping into any passersby as they wove their way through the other shoppers. Surely no one else moved quite like that. _But it_ _can't be..._

Emil stared in something akin to distress as his feet took a step toward the pair of their own accord and a single word slipped out of him.

"Lalli?"


	2. Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Trouble, oh, trouble set me free_  
>  _I have seen your face and it's too much, too much for me_  
>  _Trouble, oh, trouble can't you see_  
>  _You're eating my heart away and there's nothing much left of me_  
>  \- Trouble (cover by Elliott Smith)

**2**

"Lalli?"

It had been three years since that name had passed his lips or even crossed his waking mind. Emil hadn't meant to say it, but it slipped out before he could snatch it back.

The thin man paused, his head cocked to the side as though to catch a half-heard sound. The short woman beside him turned and--beneath a knobbly knit cap and framed by shoulder-length, silvery-blond hair--stared back at him with Tuuri Hotakainen's face.

"Emil!" She shrieked his name and wove her way through the crowd toward him, dragging her companion behind her. She threw herself at Emil once she was close enough, and he pulled his arm free of Anna's grasp to catch her in an automatic hug. Tuuri pulled back to peer at his face for just a moment, then buried her face in his shoulder again. "I can't believe that we actually ran into you on the street!"

The faintly accented Swedish transported him back years, and old ghosts stirred in his mind--memories he had struggled to forget for so long. But he had moved on with his life. He had left those days behind him. The only chill he felt was the cutting December wind.

"What are you doing here?" he asked in a dazed voice, looking up over a faceful of snow-wet wool. His eyes found Lalli's without even trying. _Lalli._  The Finnish mage gave him a brief nod in greeting, not showing a hint of surprise at seeing Emil for the first time in three and a half years. Emil's lips twitched with that old sense of bemusement as he searched Lalli's face. It was older than he remembered, and both familiar and strange to him _._ But it was still the face that had been his anchor through the worst days of his life.  _No. No need to remember any of that_.

"What do you mean, what are we doing here?"

Tuuri's voice caught his attention back, and he looked down at her as she teased him, "This is the self-proclaimed capital of Scandinavia, or didn't you know?" Her light eyes twinkled up at him in good humor. It was such a change from the last time he'd seen her. When they'd said good-bye outside the Nordic Council's satellite office, she'd had heavy bags under her eyes and a gray pallor to her skin. But then none of them had been sleeping well in those days. "Didn't your aunt and uncle tell you we were coming to visit? They invited us to join them for julbord tomorrow when they heard we were coming to Mora."

The mention of his aunt and uncle threw him even further off balance. He couldn't recall if he'd ever written to tell them he would be in Mora for the holidays. It had become so expected to stay at Anna's parents' place whenever the two of them visited Mora that he often didn't even contact his own relatives. When was the last time he'd met Siv and Torbjörn? Perhaps sometime in the early spring, before his busy season had begun? Trying to cover up how flustered he felt, he tugged Anna forward. "Anna, let me introduce you to Tuuri Hotakainen."

"Oh!" Anna clearly recognized the name, even if she had been staring in bewilderment at the two Finns until that moment. "You were part of the expedition into the Silent World!"

Emil's smile faltered, but he went on. "This is my girlfriend, Anna Lindström." Greetings were exchanged between the two women amidst fluttering hands and a flurry of compliments, an urge that females of every nationality seemed unable to resist.  _Except maybe Norwegians,_ Emil thought. The pang in his heart felt as though something had caught some tendon there and pulled it as taut as a guitar string before letting it go. _Don't think about that._ He let himself steal another glance at Lalli, and the other man lifted an eyebrow, showing little other reaction as he stood motionless among the swirling snow. Flakes clung to his eyelashes, leaving them even paler than usual. Emil had a crazy urge to reach out and touch one, to feel the cold wet melt on his fingers. He needed some kind of proof to believe this is real.  _Tuuri and Lalli are standing in front of me in the streets of Mora._

Silence fell as Tuuri beamed and looked expectantly from Emil to Anna and back again. Emil realized he was expected to continue the conversation, but it was a conversation he had never prepared himself to have. _Why did I call his name?_ Now he was going to have to talk about the expedition. He even wished for a desperate moment that he was back dealing with Anna's mother and her tireless hints and pointed questions. Dealing with his almost-mother-in-law was something he knew how to do, even if he hated it. Talking about Denmark was not something he knew how to do.

"Tuuri was our driver. And our mechanic, skald, and linguist, I guess," Emil explained awkwardly. He had never talked about that time of his life to Anna. "It was a really tight budget. And this is her cousin, Lalli. Lalli was..."

He exchanged another look with the man standing across from him. Lalli shrugged slightly, and his bored expression at least was so perfectly familiar that Emil caught himself smiling. He felt steadied, just as he always had, by those unflinching gray eyes. As long as he only allowed himself to look into Lalli's face, he could keep talking normally. "Lalli was our mage and our night scout--and our day scout and our round-the-clock scout. Whenever he wasn't either scouting or trying to steal a few minutes of sleep, he was usually saving my life. Lalli..." The Finn raised an eyebrow when Emil paused. He seemed to be waiting to see how Emil would finish the sentence. "Lalli was my best friend."

Lalli muttered something in Finnish, and Tuuri slapped his arm with a scolding "Lalli!"

"What did he say?" Anna asked, looking between Tuuri and Emil.

"I said 'Yes, his best friend he hasn't bothered contacting in three years.'" Lalli repeated in careful Swedish. He had a lilting accent, but spoke with a fluency that went far beyond the odd words and phrases he had memorized that long-ago winter.

"His best friend who suddenly speaks Swedish," Emil shot back at him, and he saw the small smirk flash across Lalli's face. That was enough to tell him that the Finn was pleased he'd been able to show off his accomplishment: Lalli always had been proud. The tight knot around his heart seemed to loosen when he realized he could still read Lalli's mercurial moods. That seemed remarkably important somehow, as he stood face to face with Lalli once again after all this time.

"Even if I had known you could read Swedish, what would I have written to you?" he asked rhetorically. "'Life is good, burned down some trees, don't tell your forest gods to smite me'?"

Lalli's heavy eyes studied him from within the fur-lined hood of his jacket. "'Got myself a girlfriend, finally got a haircut, still spend far too much time on my appearance'?" he suggested flatly.

Their eyes locked, and a grin slowly spread across Emil's face. He might like 23-year-old Lalli even better than he had liked 19-year-old Lalli. Or perhaps it was that he liked Swedish-speaking Lalli even better than the silent teen who had been limited to mocking him with tolerating looks and disapproving frowns. "You see? We don't need letters. You always see right through me."

Lalli's eyes glinted in the glow of the streetlights. "Because you are always so transparent."

"Well, I'm sorry that we can't all be constantly mystifying to the people around us."

"Yes. You are rather sorry."

Emil laughed out loud as Lalli looked quietly pleased with himself. It felt like the first time he'd laughed since arriving in Mora. It felt good.  _Maybe it's been long enough,_ he thought as he searched Lalli's face.

"So, are you coming to Siv and Torbjörn's tomorrow for julbord?" Tuuri asked, leaping back into the conversation eagerly. She stomped her feet against the cold, rubbing her mittened hands together. Emil looked her way in surprise; he had nearly forgotten that she and Anna were standing there.

"Ah, no, I'm afraid that Anna's family is expecting us." He glanced at his girlfriend, and she summoned up a bright smile when she noticed his attention back on her. "But maybe I can swing by later in the night..."

A moment of inspiration hit him. "Or how about we meet in the morning for a bit? Anna, weren't we just talking about how you wanted to go out with your sister? This way you won't have to worry about ditching me alone. You two can have fun while I catch up with Tuuri and Lalli."  _And find a present that will save me from a rather chilly julafton._

Anna's dark blue eyes narrowed, but she agreed that it seemed to be the perfect plan. Emil looked back at Tuuri, then Lalli. "Does that work for two? Where are you staying?" he asked. Tuuri named a hotel on Strandgatan. He knew the place and promised that he could be there the next morning at 11. There didn't seem to be much more to say after that, not while Anna was standing by waiting for him.

"Well...I guess I'll see you tomorrow then." The words felt odd to say, and still he didn't step away immediately. Lalli moved first, giving a brief nod before he turned and began walking away in the direction that he and Tuuri had originally been heading. Tuuri offered a little wave and went after him.

And that was it. There was no reason to stand around any longer. Emil took Anna's arm and slowly began walking once more, as the two pairs each melded back into the crowd to take their different paths through the dark night. As he walked on with his girlfriend, and the din of his fellow Swedes filled his ears once more, Emil almost wondered if he had hallucinated the past ten minutes. He looked back behind him. Lalli and Tuuri were still there, growing more distant in the crowd but still unmistakable. He saw Lalli also glance back as if he'd felt the weight of Emil's attention. He was pretty sure that their eyes met for a moment across the distance, then Lalli turned away again, raising one hand briefly in what might have been his own kind of farewell.

_Lalli Hotakainen_.

It had been years since he'd let himself remember what Lalli had once been to him. He hadn't let himself remember Lalli at all, let alone the way he had always felt grounded when standing face-to-face with his first and best friend. He never had known why Lalli had that effect on him--but he had always felt a little better, a little braver, when Lalli looked at him.

There had been a brief time, early in their relationship, when Anna's adoring looks had made him feel something like that: strong and and capable and needed. But it hadn't lasted very long. These days, her dark eyes more often seemed to hold some expectation that he wasn't sure he could live up to.

Emil realized he had been silent for nearly half the walk back to Anna's parent's home. One look at her profile told him that his distraction was not being received very well. "Was that all right? Saying I'd meet with them tomorrow?" he asked. He didn't see much point in beating around the bush. "I'm sorry. I should've talked to you first before making plans."

Anna's lips tightened briefly, but then she sighed and looked at him with earnest blue eyes. "No, it's fine. It just took me by surprise." She tilted her head to the side. "You were like a different Emil for a moment."

"I was?" he asked with some astonishment. He hadn't thought he'd been acting any different.

"You were. I've never seen you hug anyone but your relatives willingly. You barely manage an awkward pat on the back when my mother hugs you. But you hugged that woman like she was your long-lost sister. And you laughed when that man was mocking you like that. Did you really mean it when you said he was your best friend? Or was that some kind of joke?"

"Lalli?" His astonishment was complete now. He shrugged, bewildered. "He was the best friend I've ever had."

"He kind of seemed like a jerk. No. He _was_ a jerk. He was making fun of you, Emil!"

Emil was speechless. He realized that he shouldn't have waited so long. Anna had a special skill for stewing in her anger, letting small annoyances and imagined slights grow larger in her mind the longer she was left alone with them. If you could distract her soon enough, she was quick to forgive and forget--but if she was left to simmer a while, she would not be satisfied until she had said her piece. He'd heard her rant for hours over some minor insult from someone at work. He had to find a way to defuse the situation.

He tucked an arm around her shoulder, drawing her in against him with a reassuring squeeze. "Lalli is just...Lalli. He wasn't being a jerk. I knew he was teasing me."

"Are you so sure?" She looked so concerned for him that he couldn't really be angry at her for doubting Lalli. "It didn't look like teasing to me. He seemed really insulting. None of your other friends are like that."

Emil laughed. "What other friends? The other cleansers we run into around town in Östersund? They're not my friends. They're the idiots who think I'm some kind of a celebrity, or else want to suck up to a captain. Of course they don't insult me."

His faintly bitter tone seemed to take her aback and she pulled away from his hold. Even Emil was a bit surprised himself. He normally would have never said something like that to her. Maybe he _was_ angry. He hadn't thought he was. He should take his girlfriend's side over some friend that he hadn't even talked to in years, even if that friend had once been the only rock keeping him sane in a dark sea of horror. _But that_ _was a long time ago. It doesn't matter now._

"Well, what about Lars? Or Oliver? They're your friends, and they really like you."

"They're  _your_ friends, Anna. And they really like _you_ , so they put up with me."

She gaped at him and he wished he had kept his mouth shut. He was quickly getting himself in so deep that even the gift of jewelry might not get him back out. He didn't want to spend the entire holiday fighting. It was exhausting enough staying with her parents even when Anna was on his side.

"Look, Anna, I'm sorry. I love Lars and Oliver. I do. They're great guys. But you have to admit that they were your friends first. It's not exactly the same thing as having a friend of my own, and Lalli was the first real friend I ever made on my own. He may not be perfect, but he was always there for me back...when I needed him."

They turned a corner, walking in silence for several minutes. The snow was still falling thick and fast, muffling their footsteps as they made their way through the residential streets. Anna's honey gold hair was littered with the large white flakes and Emil remembered the sight of Lalli's eyes framed by snow-laden lashes. He was regretting coming to Mora all over again. It would have been so much easier if they had stayed in Östersund and celebrated the holidays there, just the two of them, the way that he had wanted to.

"I've never heard you talk about it before," Anna said, breaking the long impasse in their conversation. "The expedition. I thought you hated remembering it."

"I did. I do."

"Then why did you look so happy talking to those two?"

Had he really looked happy? It had been nice. It had been nicer than he'd thought it could be. The memories he feared had stayed put in the black box in his heart where he'd locked them away. "I don't know. It's been a long time. It wasn't all bad, you know. We were--we were a family."

"A family?"

He grimaced. He didn't want to explain it, but he felt like he owed her that much. "I don't know if you can imagine what it was like. It was just the six of us in a completely unknown world, with no one else to rely on. There would be no help, no rescue if we messed up. Every minute of every day, we were stuck together in a tank smaller than my apartment in Östersund. We ate together, slept together, fought together..." He had to stop there. He was verging too close to everything he had worked so hard to forget. "Please don't ask me to say more."

Perhaps the rare glimpse into his past had been enough to cool her temper, because Anna took his hand again. When he looked at her, she was worrying at her lower lip and he felt a spurt of warmth toward her. She always looked like an unsure girl when she did that, instead of the stunning, confident woman who had first approached him in a cafe three years before. Maybe he had loved her first for her perfect beauty, but he _liked_ her best when she was imperfect. He laced his gloved fingers through hers, and they walked on in silence, each buried so deep in their own thoughts that they might as well have been alone in the falling snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You people! You were seeing dead people, and all there was to find here was a bit of snark and flirtation! Geez, you Debbie Downers... ;) Will try to keep updating at least every Wed and Sat. Maybe more--we'll see.


	3. Twilight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Haven't laughed this hard in a long time_  
>  _I better stop now before I start crying_  
>  \- Twilight, Elliott Smith

**3**  

 

The sun rose on December 24 to kiss the snow-covered streets of Mora. It wasn't the pristine white of a fresh fall anymore, since the sun didn't rise until after 9 am and many people had already been out and about in the city. By the time Emil was walking back across town at half-past ten, the smooth blanket of snow had been kicked into a gray mess again. It matched his mood perfectly.

It had been a bad night--worse than he had experienced in months. It must have been seeing Lalli and Tuuri again that had brought the memories back to the forefront of his mind, and his dreams had been full of blood and teeth and fear. He was dragging his feet as he walked through the slush to meet the Hotakainens. What if they brought up the past? What if they actually wanted to talk about those things he had struggled so long to forget? Why had he ever thought it might be good to meet them again, even if it gave him the excuse to look for a gift for Anna?

When he arrived at Strandgatan 12, he hesitated for a moment before the glass-fronted doors, then yanked one open and strode through. The lobby seemed gloomily dark after the blinding light reflecting off the snow outside, but once his eyes adjusted to the weaker light, he found that he was already expected. Sitting in one of the old, stuffed chairs was Lalli, his sharp chin resting upon the heel of his left hand. His jacket was thrown over the back of the chair, and Emil got his first full look at his old friend. As it turned out, Tuuri wasn't the only one who had grown out that pale blond hair that the Finns so often boasted. Lalli's hair must have also reached his shoulders at least, though it was hard to be sure when it was caught back in a ponytail the way it was.

He was a bit surprised to see that Lalli wasn't dressed in one of those long tunics that Emil thought of as typical Finnish garb. Instead, a soft black sweater enveloped his thin body, the high neck coming all the way up under his chin and reminding Emil of the black thermal shirts they had all worn in those days. _Don't think about it._  The sleeves were shoved down on Lalli's forearms, his bony wrists projecting like the paper-white branches of a birch tree. His legs were crossed, one foot swinging impatiently in its knee-high boot, and his eyes had shot up at the sound of Emil pushing the door open.

 _Once a scout, always a scout,_ Emil thought. He assumed that Lalli still worked in the field, but he could be wrong. It had been a long time.

"Sorry, am I late?" he asked as he hurried across the lobby. Lalli waved a hand at the chair opposite him.

"Not you. Tuuri."

"Tuuri?" Emil asked in surprise. His heart was beating harder than it should have as he lowered himself into the chair, unzipping his own jacket and pulling his arms of it. To see Lalli sitting in front of him again was still hard to believe. To actually have a normal conversation with his former friend in Swedish felt like something unreal.

"She wanted to visit some shops this morning. I didn't want to. She said she would be back in time to meet you, but as you can see..." Lalli rolled his gray eyes, and Emil laughed. He didn't know why the smallest gesture from Lalli seemed so amusing to him. Maybe because he doled them out so sparingly.

"How did you even get dragged into coming to Sweden?" Emil asked, his voice still rich with amusement.

Lalli gave him a long look. "You think I didn't want to come to Sweden?" Emil's eyebrows quirked together, unsure how to take that. Lalli let out of a breathy snort of a laughter and went on. "Tuuri wanted to take a trip. She..." He glanced toward the door to make sure his cousin still hadn't arrived. "She had a relationship that ended badly. She needed to get away from Keuruu a while."

Emil blinked several times. He had never even imagined Tuuri being in a relationship with someone. Perhaps she had felt the same way when she saw him with Anna, though. Life had moved on, and they were all getting older. "I didn't even know she had someone like that," he murmured. Lalli shrugged and Emil asked curiously, "Do you? Have someone like that?"

He got another one of those inscrutable looks for his question, then Lalli looked away across the lobby. "Sure, I do."

"She didn't want to come along?"

"He didn't, no."

Emil thought he managed to keep his face straight. Even if he had failed, though, Lalli was still studying the bookshelves across the lobby.  _I suppose it's not that much odder to think of Lalli with a man than it is to think of Lalli with a woman. I can't imagine Lalli with anyone._

He kept his tone light as he mused, "I guess maybe that's for the better, huh? I'm glad I ditched Anna this morning, too. I wouldn't want to be rubbing it in Tuuri's face."

Lalli turned back to meet his eyes again. "She seemed...nice." The bland remark sounded more like an insult than a compliment, and Emil guessed that he should have been offended on his girlfriend's behalf. He wasn't. Things had still been strained between them when they'd parted ways that morning, and he wasn't looking forward to the long julbord meal with her entire family.

"She is. Generally. When I haven't gotten myself in trouble with her." He pulled a rueful face. "But I think I'm in trouble with her now."

There was a strange smile playing about Lalli's mouth. "Poor Emil," he said in a soft voice. "What will we do with you?"

"Help me find a jul gift that will get me out of the doghouse?" Emil suggested with a sheepish grin. The look that Lalli leveled at him left him feeling warmer than when he had been all bundled up in his jacket. Lalli's ability to see right through him hadn't changed. Emil had spent three years quite safe behind his facade, but Lalli's clear gray eyes cut right through it, the same as they always had seemed to do. Yet Emil still felt safe with his fragile ego cradled in Lalli's hands. He hoped he wasn't wrong to believe that Lalli was still the same friend he had been four years before.

Lalli unfolded himself from the chair. He picked up his jacket and began pulling his arms through the sleeves. "You don't have much time then, do you?"

Jumping to his feet, Emil asked as he threw his own jacket back on, "But what about Tuuri?"

"You can leave a message with the staff here, and they will tell Tuuri when she arrives," Lalli explained with a straight face, as though he really thought Emil didn't know how a hotel worked. Emil's lips twitched. The odd mix of naivety and self-assurance was just as captivating as he remembered. Yet Lalli had clearly learned to be comfortable in his own skin as well. He walked right up to the front desk and told the woman on duty there, "When my cousin returns, tell her that we set out ahead of her." He turned his head to ask Emil, "Do you have a place in mind?"

Emil stepped up beside Lalli, his shoulder bumping against the Finn's as he leaned on the front desk. "You can tell her that we'll be somewhere on Kyrkogatan. We'll be sure to stay there until she joins us."

Lalli walked away without waiting for any response, and Emil jogged after him, zipping up his jacket as he went. When they were outside on the snowy road, Emil nudged Lalli with an elbow. "This way," he said, nodding down the street to their right.

"I know."

As Lalli led the way through the sparse morning crowds, Emil asked, "Just how long have you guys been here?"

"Since Wednesday afternoon."

"Only a day and a half?" Lalli looked back at him with a scornful look, and Emil felt his cheeks flush warmly in the cold air.  _He's a trained scout. Of course he can memorize a map in less time than that._ "Are you still working as a night scout?" he asked, trying to steer the conversation in a different direction.

Lalli shrugged. "Not often, but when I'm needed. More mage work now. Going out with hunters or cleansers, that sort of thing." Emil had drawn even with him, and Lalli slowed his usual pace so that they could walk abreast. "I take it you're still a cleanser."

"Yeah." Emil chuckled. "It's not like I'm good at anything else. I got made a captain this year--though they've been trying to get me to work as a recruiter instead."

Lalli's disgusted face was exactly the expression that Emil wanted to make whenever he considered the idea. "You'd be terrible."

"I would not!" He was grinning even as he protested. "But it's true that I don't want to do it."

"And so you would be terrible," Lalli said in a satisfied tone, as though Emil had just proved his point. Emil wondered if maybe it had been a language failure. Had Lalli meant "miserable" maybe? He asked the question that had been on his mind for some time: "How did you end up speaking Swedish? You kept learning even after..."  _Don't think about it._

He trailed off, but luckily Lalli picked up the conversation's thread where he dropped it. "Tuuri kept teaching me. I couldn't get her to stop. It's not like there's a lot to do in Keuruu anyway."

Emil laughed appreciatively and asked more about the town that Lalli lived in. As they poked through the shops on Kyrkogatan, he learned about life in Finland's largest military base. When forced to, Lalli told him how the people lived and the kinds of work he usually did. He described his small living quarters and the daily routines of base life. His well-trained observational skills allowed him to describe the people with such brutal accuracy that Emil could almost see them in his mind. In return, Emil told him the funniest stories he could remember from his past few years in the field as a cleanser. He said nothing about Anna, and Lalli said nothing about whatever man he had left behind in Finland. And neither brought up Denmark. Instead Emil talked about the different parts of Sweden he had visited for his work and about some of the idiots he had working under him. "Even I can tell they're idiots, and I'm an idiot myself," he muttered.

"It's good you've finally recognized it," Lalli said drily as he turned a painted dalahästen figure in his hands. Before Emil could think up a jibe to hurl back, Lalli had gone on. "What is it with your people and these ugly creatures?" Lalli asked, lifting the small horse figurine to sight down its long face.

"Horses?" Emil asked, bewildered. "You're telling me you hate  _horses_?"

Lalli looked at him, the glossy red horse still held up to his eye level. "I don't hate them. I don't see the appeal of them. Or why you insist on putting them all over your city."

"That's settled then," Emil said, clapping an arm around Lalli's narrow shoulders as he saw the perfect opportunity to pay Lalli back for his insult. "We're getting you on a horse before this trip is over."

"No." Lalli's flat refusal was immediate. He shook his head to reinforce the point. "I don't ride around on other creatures for pleasure."

"Why not?"

"It's against my religion."

Emil searched the solemn face inches from his own, his hand still hanging over Lalli's right shoulder. "Are you being serious right now?"

Lalli drew away, setting the wooden horse back amid the neat row of its fellow souvenirs. "Remember what we said about you being an idiot?"

Emil's face reddened and he shoved Lalli over by his head, mussing up his hair as he did. "You are definitely going horse riding. And you're going to be terrible. And I'm going to love every minute of it." Somehow he didn't question for that moment that he would be meeting Lalli again after today. Lalli slunk over to the other side of the tourist shop, scowling. They continued poking through the kitsch and dissecting the worst examples until Tuuri finally found them.

"There you two are!"

They looked up in sync. Emil had a guilty expression on his face, but Lalli simply said, "You're the one who was late."

"I know, I know, I'm sorry. I found the most amazing book store and..." She looked between their blank expressions. "And you don't care. Okay, I get it. So what are we looking for here?"

"A jul gift for Emil's girlfriend," Lalli said, from in front of a rack of earthenware mugs that were painted with the words "Skandinaviens huvudstad!"

"In a tourist shop?" she asked doubtfully.

"No!" Emil slapped Lalli's hand away from the horrid mugs. "I mean, we did come out to try to find a gift, but obviously we're not going to buy one here."

"Then why are you here?"

Emil looked at Lalli. Lalli held up a small stuffed horse. Emil ignored the toy and said, "I guess we got distracted. Never mind. I need a break from shopping anyway. Let's find a place to fika."

There were no protests from the Finns. They all tucked up their collars and ventured back out into the street to find a café that was both open and not packed with other patrons looking to escape the cold. After stepping in and right back out of a few places, they finally found a coffee house with an open table. They ordered drinks and sweets, then took their seats before someone else could claim them, stripping off jackets, scarves, and gloves as they settled in. The barista brought them their drinks after a few minutes--a black coffee for Emil, a latté for Tuuri, and a hot chocolate for Lalli. The drinks were prohibitively expensive, but it was a special occasion, after all, and the conversation flowed easily as Tuuri joined in the updates, telling Emil about what she was currently working on. Her heartbreak was not mentioned, assuming that Lalli had been telling the truth about it, but Emil did think that she seemed a bit melancholy at turns now that he was watching for it.

They chatted about the trip over from Finland and what they'd done on their first day in Mora. Tuuri elaborated on all the plans she had for the remaining eight days they had in Sweden. She'd come up with quite the impressive list. Emil offered advice where he could, and cautioned her away from some of the worst tourist traps. Lalli was mostly silent through this part of the conversation, only occasionally interjecting with a grumbling complaint. Midway through their discussion about the best way to spend New Year's Eve, he excused himself from the table and waited in line at the counter again, coming back ten minutes later with a plate in each hand. He slid a huge open-faced sandwich and a plate of cheeses onto the table and the trio talked their way through the lunch hour as they picked apart the food, Emil and Lalli bickering over the choicest bits as Tuuri gazed longingly at the display case full of confectionaries.

When Emil looked at his watch and realized that it was past two, he had to glance out the window to be sure he had the time right. But the light was indeed low, with sunset less than a half-hour away. He was normally counting the hours during get-togethers with his Östersund friends (who were really Anna's Östersund friends, after all). He didn't remember the last time that an afternoon had gotten away from him in such a painless way. But he and Tuuri had easily fallen back into their old rapport--after all, they had spent hours and hours together in the front of the tank once, talking about anything and everything and learning how to find topics they both enjoyed. And Lalli seemed quite content to watch them talk, only adding the odd remark here and there.

But Emil had to be back at the Lindström house at three. There might just be time to run by a jewelry store and pick something up for Anna. Yet as he sat there, watching Tuuri try to talk Lalli into a day trip to Älvdalen to see the hydroelectric plant, he couldn't make himself care about spending half a month's salary on some sparkly bit of nonsense so that Anna would be sweet to him the rest of their trip. He'd gotten her a cookbook that she should love. And books were expensive. And even if he got her a necklace or a ring, it wasn't going to be _the_ ring: the engagement ring that she wanted from him. He was doomed to disappoint her regardless.

The sudden urge to talk about all the doubts weighing on his mind was so strong that he had to clamp his mouth shut to keep from blurting any of them out. While they might be the closest friends he had left in the world, Tuuri and Lalli were also practically strangers after all these years. He couldn't just go spilling every detail of his private life to them when they were here on vacation. Especially not if Tuuri was trying to forget about her own heartache. Things with Anna were fine. They'd been fine before they came to Mora, and they would go back to being fine once the two of them returned to their familiar life in Östersund. So he let the conversation continue, a bemused smile on his face as he watched the cousins bicker, occasionally slipping in and out of Finnish for what he assumed were the choicest insults.

He waited until the last possible minute, but finally he  _had_ to leave or he would be late, and Anna would have even more reason to be angry with him. He made his excuses and stood to begin pulling all of his gear back on. Tuuri reached up to grab his hands, leaning across the table as she did. She looked sweet and pretty as she looked up at him with those earnest eyes, a strand of hair slipping across her forehead. "Are you sure you can't stop by Siv and Torbjörn's?"

Despite the rocky start to the day, he had made it through several hours of conversation without the worst parts of his past overwhelming him. None of them had brought up those days, keeping the conversation safely on recent events and the sights to see around Sweden, and it had been the best afternoon he could remember having in a long time. Emil made his decision in a split second, not allowing himself any time to second guess it.

"Okay, I promise. I'll do my best to swing by after supper wraps up at the Lindströms. I don't know if you'll still be there, but you can tell my aunt and uncle for me, would you?" It would be good to see his relatives again. Anna could damn well understand that his family was as important as hers and come along, or he would go on his own. But if it came to that, he hoped that Siv still had that comfy couch in the study, because he probably would not be welcome back in Anna's bed this julafton night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Awesome harp cover of Twilight here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjsFL_5Td_g
> 
>  
> 
> _And if I went with you I'd disappoint you, too_  
>  _Well, I'm already somebody's baby_  
>  _Already somebody's baby..._


	4. Miss Misery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I'll fake it through the day_  
>  _with some help from Johnny Walker red_  
>  _Send the poisoned rain down the drain_  
>  _to put bad thoughts in my head_  
>  \- Miss Misery, Elliott Smith

**4**

 

Emil sighed, watching the flames on the ljustakke flutter on the window ledge beside him. He was slumped into the far edge of the stiff sofa. Anna was sitting beside him, her right leg barely grazing his left thigh. On her lap she held her cookbook in a tight grip that hadn't loosened once since her father, dressed up as the jultomten as he did every year, had handed her the flat package and she had unwrapped it. The children had all been shouting and wrestling over their gifts, so there hadn't been too many witnesses to her disappointment. But Emil, sat beside her, had seen the momentary blank look that had passed over her face.

She had thanked him, and her mother had of course managed to sneak in a comment about how lucky he would be to have such a wonderful cook taking care of him for all the years to come, and Emil had felt miserable. Now he was regretting that he hadn't gotten something more while he was in town. He was regretting staying so long chatting with Tuuri and Lalli that morning. And he was mostly regretting saying good-bye to them to come back here for an afternoon of awkward conversation and forced smiles.

Perhaps it would have been better if he'd never turned around at the sound of those half-remembered voices. Yes, Anna would have still been mad at him if he had ditched her this morning, but then he would have bought her something dripping in sparkling stones and she would have forgiven him. She would have been giving him sympathetic looks and squeezing his knee, instead of ignoring him as she gossiped with her sister about some cousin living on Sollerön. To be perfectly honest, though, he was beginning to think he would have probably been happier yet spending the holiday alone in their flat in Östersund and enjoying some peace and quiet.

Instead he was stuck here in her parent's living room in Mora. The remains of the julbord spread were still weighing down the dining table, and it would take days for all the leftovers to be polished off, but this night would still drag on for hours. Should he stay and try to repair things with Anna? Show her that he was making an effort? Or should he keep his promise to the friends and family who had known him before he had ever been Emil Västerström, brave explorer of the Silent World? He knew which option he preferred, and it was his jul, too, wasn't it?

When he'd returned to the family home after his long lunch with the Hotakainens, he had sheepishly told Anna about his promise to try to swing by his uncle's house in the evening. She had been tactfully neutral, telling him that of course it was natural that he visit his relatives during the holiday as well. "It's very sweet of you to think of them. We'll just play it by ear tonight," she had said with a strained smile. She had been trying then. She wasn't trying now. When he got her attention with a light touch on her knee and nodded to his watch arm, she followed his look to his wrist and then turned away without giving even a hint that she'd gotten the message. Emil felt his temper flare.

Getting to his feet, he bent over once to press a sloppy kiss on her temple and then said loudly enough for anyone sitting nearby to hear, "It's so sweet of you to understand. I'll be sure to give my aunt and uncle your regards, though they'll be sorry to have missed you. Don't wait up."

Her lips tightened up into a furious knot and he knew he had just made things even worse for himself. But he wasn't going to try to give any excuses or have this argument in front of her entire arrayed family, ranging from 78-year-old Nan to the latest baby--which had started squalling in the sudden, ringing silence. He would stay at his uncle's place tonight. Maybe tomorrow, too. Maybe if she had a few days to cool down, he could try to find a way to explain to her what it meant to him to see Lalli and Tuuri again. Maybe he would finally be able to tell her about the memories it was stirring up and how they were getting harder and harder to keep pressed down. Maybe they would have a real conversation and she would see a real part of him and they could be even closer than ever.

_Or maybe,_ he thought as he pulled on his jacket in the foyer,  _she'll just dump me._ The thought came to him with something that felt oddly like relief. It would certainly solve the question of whether he ought to propose or not. In the early days of their relationship, when he still couldn't believe that this beautiful, smart woman could be his, he had worried that she would realize the kind of person he really was and leave him. But she never had. She loved him. She loved being the girlfriend of the famous cleanser who had come back alive from the Silent World. She wanted to be the wife of that famous cleanser, in fact. All he had to do was not screw things up, and she would keep him feeling loved and needed and only a little bit wanting for the rest of his life. They had their arguments, but if he begged her to forgive him, she always did.

Maybe he would be in a begging mood the next day. But tonight he felt like a stiff drink.

 

 

He heard the Västerström party from a block away. As far as he knew, his aunt and uncle hadn't invited anyone but the visiting Finns. Yet there were shouts and cheers coming from the bright house, and a gramophone recording was playing far too loudly for any of the neighbors to be happy about. When he arrived at the door, he tried knocking politely. Then he tried knocking harder. When hammering with the heel of his hand got no response, he finally let himself into the cacophony of noise and shouted, "I'm here!"

His cousins came pounding down the hall and threw themselves upon him. It had been easier when they were all under ten. Now they bowled him right over to the floor and his head banged against the wall as he went down. Instead of asking to play hair salon, they wanted to wrestle and try to pin him down to torture him with deviously placed tickles and wet fingers wedged into his ears. Since his hair was so short that it hardly grazed the tips of his ears, they made a much easier target than they had used to. He clamped his hands over them, his elbows tucked tightly to his sides to protect his armpits and his eyes squeezed shut against the odd chance of losing one of them to a stray poke. It was easier just to let the hellions wash over you, like a tidal wave, and wait for them to lose interest.

The digging fingers and jabbing knees and wet touches stopped more abruptly than he remembered from his last visit, and he cautiously cracked an eye open to see what was going on. Lalli was standing a few feet down the hallway, his arms folded across his black sweater. It somehow felt like it had been days, not hours, and Emil was surprised to see Lalli looking just as he had that morning in the hotel lobby. Except rather more glassy eyed, a flush riding high on his sharp cheekbones.

The Finn cleared his throat, and the three children sprang to their feet, lining up in front of him like obedient soldiers. He gave them a nod and a curt appraisal of "Good," then sent them on their way. They thundered back to the kitchen, where they were greeted by the wailing of their mother.

Lalli held out a thin hand and Emil took it, letting the other man pull him to his feet. "What did you do?" he asked in amazement. "Did you use magic on them?"

"You may never know," Lalli said mysteriously as he turned and walked ahead of Emil into the house. But Emil had seen the strange little smile on Lalli's face when the mage had first been looking down at him sprawled in the entrance. And Tuuri threw her arms around him again, clearly a bit drunk already, before stripping him of his jacket and throwing it over the back of an armchair. Siv cupped his cheek with a soft hand and gave him a kiss on his nose, and Torbjörn burst into tears before wrapping him in a bear hug that lifted him off the ground, his arms pinned to his sides and hands feebly waving about. They pushed him down into a carved wooden chair and Lalli dropped into the seat beside him as a glass of akvavit was promptly wedged into his hand and filled to the brim--and past the brim, spilling onto his fingers before anyone was quick enough to lift the bottle again.

"How much have you all been drinking?" he asked, laughing. The awkward atmosphere he'd left behind at the Lindström house barely twenty minutes before already felt like someone else's life. Here he was, wrapped in the familiar warmth of his uncle's home and surrounded by people who knew that he'd shrieked in terror the first time he'd been face-to-face with a troll and that lighting things on fire was the only thing he was remotely good at and that he wasn't a hero of the Silent World, not even a little bit.

Siv glanced at the empty bottle on the counter as Tuuri forced his hand up, sloshing even more of the liquor onto the table--and some of it onto the cold slices of ham still spread out among the other dishes--on the way to his mouth. "Enough that you've got quite a bit of catching up to do, you feckless Swede!"

He threw back the first glass in one go, choking slightly before he asked Tuuri, "Feckless? I don't even know what that means. Why do you  _know_ a word like that in Swedish?"

"Not all of us are academic dropouts, you know!" She mocked him in a singsong tone, and Emil realized that they were even more drunk than he'd thought. Tuuri filled his glass again, as Siv tried to explain to Torbjörn beside her how Emil had run into the Finns in the street--a story she must have heard from Tuuri at some point. Torbjörn was trying to tell his wife that he already knew--"I was there when she told us just four hours ago!"--but it wasn't doing anything to stop her from relating the whole thing again. Tuuri waxed on about the dishes they'd had for julbord--"It's nothing like anything we eat back home and some of it is quite terrible and I can't believe that you people think this is some kind of treat, but it was all great, really!"--and the kids were passing around a half-empty glass of akvavit under the table, which they must have gotten their paws on when the adults were all too sloshed to notice. Emil watched them bending nearly to table's edge to steal sips and didn't say a word. He glanced at Lalli and the other man shrugged. Of _course_ he had noticed that the kids had alcohol. Of _course_ he didn't see any reason why he should do anything about it.

"You're kind of an ass, and I've really missed that," Emil said without thinking. For most of the time he had known Lalli, he had been able to say whatever he wanted because the Finn hadn't understood hardly a word of it. In those days, he could be as direct and honest as he wanted, and Lalli had been the accepting receptacle of all his feelings and fears and worries. There had been no real judgement back then--and maybe there wasn't any judgement now, but there was definitely an eyebrow quirked in a way that made him wish he could swallow the words back into his mouth.

"Are there no asses in Sweden?" the Finn asked, straight-faced as ever.

"Plenty. I think I joined their ranks today, in fact." He raised his glass and clinked it against the small flute Lalli had been twirling between his narrow fingers. "So I guess we make a fine pair."

Lalli sipped his liquor and gave Emil a cool look over the rim of the glass. "Mm-hmm."

The conversation rocketed between Emil, Tuuri, Siv, and Torbjörn, as Emil's aunt and uncle tried to fill Emil in on what had been going on in their lives as of late. They were constantly interrupted by the children, and Tuuri would chime in with details that they had told her earlier and were too drunk to remember now. Emil told them about his first summer as a captain, and Lalli suggested that he tell them the story about his new recruit who had set his bed on fire and burnt down half a barrack. At some point the gramophone needle reached the end of its track and the music stopped. A considerable amount of time after that, Torbjörn finally noticed that the music had stopped and stepped up on his chair to start a round of "Helan går." Tuuri and Emil joined in for shouts of "Hopp faderallan!" as Lalli shook his head at them all.

Then Emil and his uncle spent a good half hour or more teaching Tuuri every drinking song they could think of. Emil knew far more, and far bawdier ones, since he was an active member of what was widely recognized as the Swedish military's lowest branch. The eldest of his three cousins listened with wide eyes and explained a few of the choicest phrases to the younger two as Torbjörn pounded the table and cried with laughter. He raised a glass to Emil after a particularly fine performance that had detailed where a cleanser's fire came from and how they kept it burning all night long, and shouted, "A drink to Emil, the finest cleanser Sweden could ask for!"

Flushing red, Emil took a bow and nearly knocked his head into the light hanging from the ceiling. He dropped back down into his chair, deciding that was safer than standing on top of it. "To Tuuri and Lalli, who clearly need to come spend every holiday in Sweden," he said in return, raising his glass to his friends in their turn.

"To Sigrun Eide, the greatest captain Norway had to offer," Siv said, her voice suddenly serious.

And there it was. The name he had tried so hard not to think for the past 24 hours.

The laughter faded in an instant, and the kids looked at each other, unsure how to react. Emil stared at his glass, a lump the size of a Denmark stuck in his throat, and lifted his drink silently. He couldn't bear to look at any of the others.

Tuuri sniffled and said softly, "To Mikkel Madsen. Denmark's great son and our d-dear friend and protector."

They all drank again, and even with his eyes fixed on the clear liquid in his glass, Emil could see that Siv was wiping at her eyes. She suddenly pushed herself up from the table and began herding the children out of the room, insisting that it was well past time for them to get to bed. Torbjörn cleared his throat noisily and started to pick up the empty dishes from the table, carrying them to the sink to be washed the next morning.

Tuuri turned her empty glass upside down on the table and dropped her chin onto her folded arms. "I still miss them. Even after all these years."

Emil couldn't speak around the thing choking him in his throat. He hadn't talked about what had happened once since the day that they'd given their report to the Nordic Council, effectively killing the chance of any more expeditions happening for the next decade or two at least.  _Miss_ them? He had done everything he could to never even think about Sigrun and Mikkel. Missing them had been out of the question.

He let his eyes travel the photo on the wall--the one that he had refused to look at in all the times he had come to his aunt and uncle's house since his return. But this time he forced his gaze to crawl over the frame and up the legs wrapped in matching white uniforms to the smiling group of faces. It was a photo of the crew, as they had been before setting out across the Öresund bridge. Sigrun's reckless grin was as beautiful and free as he remembered. Mikkel showed off the amused smirk that he'd so often worn around Emil. Tuuri looked bright-eyed and innocent, and Lalli had been a half-wild fey thing, peering out from under his hood like a spooked cat.

The older Lalli leaned into his side. It was a slight touch, but Emil looked his way and in those gray eyes, he saw that Lalli understood. He always had. They were the only two still alive who had been there when Sigrun was lost. Tuuri had been waiting in the tank and only really knew the few details either of them had been able to bear telling her. He slumped against Lalli in return, and the thin mage somehow held his weight up.

"Do you hate us for sending you out there?"

Siv's question would have been impossible to hear if the silence hadn't been so complete. She had come back down from the second floor, stopping on the last step with her hand on the bannister. Emil looked down the hall at her, but she didn't lift her eyes from the floor until Lalli, unusually for him, was the first to speak up.

"No."

That one syllable was enough to break through the lump that had been keeping Emil from speaking. "Of course not, Aunt Siv. You didn't _send_ us out there. We all chose to go."

She shook her head, taking a few steps down the hall but stopping shy of the dining room and leaning against the wall tiredly instead of taking a seat again. "You were just kids, and we tricked you into risking your lives because of our stupid dreams of money and fame."

"We weren't kids," Emil insisted, even though he felt like they really had been. They all looked so young in that photo now. "We knew where it was we were going."

"Not really. We filled your heads with dreams and sent you off on a suicide mission! Our own family!" She sounded disgusted and beaten. It was the first time he'd ever heard her voice any of this, but it obviously wasn't the first time she had thought it. "What if you hadn't made it back? What would your parents have said?"

"They would have forgiven you."

Torbjörn interrupted glumly, "No, they wouldn't have."

Emil had to admit that Torbjörn had probably known his brother better than Emil had known his father. "Okay, no, maybe they wouldn't have. But they couldn't say anything anyway. They were already five years dead by then."

"Which only makes it worse!" Siv cried, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. She opened them again to look at Tuuri and Lalli. "If any of you had had parents to look out for your best interests, you never would have gone on that expedition. They would have told you how insane it was."

Tuuri gave a wobbly smile. "We had my brother, and he tried to tell us that it was crazy in a hundred different ways. I still didn't listen." She got up from the table and went to Siv, placing her hands gently on the older woman's tightly crossed arms. "And you know what? Even knowing now how it all ended, I still would have gone."

Lalli nodded in agreement, his eyes narrowed and gleaming in the light. Siv turned back to Emil, the tired lines of her face deeper than usual in the low electric light. "What about you, Emil? Would you still have gone?"

"I...I don't know the answer to that," he admitted. It felt cowardly in the face of Lalli and Tuuri's solidarity, but he didn't want to lie about it. Not to these four anyway. "I wish I--" Emil broke off and shook his head, his fringe falling into his eyes. He settled on saying the only true thing he could. "I can't imagine who I would be if I hadn't gone. I would probably still be that useless, spoiled kid. I'm a better person because I went."

"You _were_  pretty useless," Lalli agreed, his arm a reassuring weight against Emil's shoulder. Tuuri shot off a flurry of Finnish and Lalli threw a dismissive response back at her in the same language.

"What?" 

"She's being ridiculous," Lalli said at the exact same moment that Tuuri insisted, "That's not true at all!"

They glared at one another for a moment. "Well, it's not!" Tuuri insisted hotly, stepping back to the table and planting both hands in front of the two men as she leaned over them. "You were not useless, Emil. We would have never made it back without you. Maybe Lalli doesn't want to admit it, but he _needed_ you. We all did."

Lalli had needed him? Emil shook his head. Tuuri had things backwards. Not strong Lalli. Lalli was made out of silver. The core of him was like brilliant metal: hard and unyielding. It could be melted down, but once it cooled, it would go right back to its unbending state. Perhaps a little weakened, but still solid and beautiful. Next to him, Emil was more like a lump of stone, brittle and rough. Every blow knocked off little pieces of him. For the past three years, he had felt like a haphazard pile of shattered stone, ready to tumble down at any moment, and he had maintained his boring, cautious life to keep the whole thing from going over. But little pebbles had begun to slide the moment he heard Tuuri speaking Finnish in the street. They skittered and clattered with the telltale warning that said a rockslide was coming.

"Come on," Lalli said, grabbing Emil by the arm and dragging him up with a rough pull. "You need some fresh air." And that was how Lalli rescued him once again, this time by propelling him out the back door of the kitchen onto the small porch in the fenced yard.


	5. Everything Reminds Me of Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I never really had a problem_  
>  _Because of leaving_  
>  _But everything reminds me of her_  
>  _This evening_  
>  _So if I seem a little out of it_  
>  _Sorry_  
>  _Why should I lie?_  
>  _Everything reminds me of her_  
>  \- Everything Reminds Me of Her, Elliot Smith

**5**

There was a single light overhead, catching the tiny snowflakes that were falling through the night sky. Neither of them were wearing their jackets and their breath exploded in clouds of white as they crossed their arms tightly across their chests.

"It's freezing," Emil observed, trying not to shiver. Maybe he was emotionally numb but that did not mean he was impervious to the physical cold. "Why are we outside?"

"You're drunk. And Tuuri is drunk." Emil was about to point out that Lalli was also looking more than a little drunk when his friend continued: "But she is also right."

Emil stopped breathing, clenching his muscles tight to try to keep them from trembling in the cold. "About what?"

"I needed you."

Those three words snatched the freezing air out of Emil's lungs. "No, you didn't. You were the strong one. I only managed to get up and move each morning because you were already heading out of the tank, and I felt too bad leaving you to do everything alone."

"And I could only set out first because I knew you believed I would."

Shuddering, Emil looked within himself at the black box he kept locked in his heart. And slowly, inch by inch, he lifted the lid to see what lay beneath it.

He remembered the nights. Every night, he and Lalli had set up the sensors around the tank and slept together in the front seat, leaning against one another for warmth and fully armed in case an alarm went off. It would take ages for him to fall asleep, even though he was exhausted from a day spent on his feet and on edge. Lalli never seemed to have any trouble falling asleep--but he was a light sleeper. He would notice Emil shifting restlessly and would make soft shushing noises at him, still more asleep than awake.

They couldn't run the heater in the front seat without turning on the engine. It had been cold enough to see their breath erupting in front of his face, obscuring his view of the windshield for a few precious moments in which he could pretend he was looking out at some other landscape. Then the vapor would dissipate and he would still be in the frozen, dark hunk of steel in a world miles and miles from any light. And Emil would sink lower into the seat, tucking his chin into the collar of his outdoor jacket and purposefully jostling Lalli just so that he would make his soothing noises again.

Sometimes the alarm had gone off. There had been horrible nights of rotting bodies and gouts of flame and gleaming blades. So many times they had only made it through thanks to Lalli pulling off some magic trickery and giving Emil the time to regroup and strike back. Lalli never seemed unsure in battle. He surged forward with his short knife and an extra sword that had once been Sigrun's, lashing out at the darkness that was trying to swallow them up. And Emil followed him without question, never quailing as long as he could see Lalli spinning and slashing beside him.

He remembered now how Lalli had looked the worst of any of them--not just wan from not eating, but hollow eyed and almost transparent. And yet every morning, he had set out through that heavy metal door to lead the tank back home. And when he would return to the tank, Emil would put his arms around the mage, clapping his hands tight against Lalli's back to reassure himself that Lalli was still alive at least. And Lalli would sag into him, resting his head tiredly on Emil's shoulder.

"I didn't want to fail you, too."

Emil's head jerked up. "Do you think you failed them? You couldn't have done anything different. Sigrun..." He could still barely stand to say the words. His teeth began chattering, and he couldn't stop them this time. "You didn't fail."

Lalli whispered a few words in Finnish, and the air around them warmed noticeably. Emil felt the ice crystals in his hair and on his face begin to melt, rolling slowly over his skin like tiny tears. He asked, "Is that why you stopped working as a scout? Because you thought you screwed up in Denmark?"

The mage shrugged. "No. Maybe. It just seemed to make sense. I had more combat experience than most mages after Denmark. I could do more good there."

There was silence for several long minutes, as they both looked out across the neighborhood. There were so many houses lit up with warm electric lights, so many people living safe and happy lives in this tiny pocket of humanity. The stars were covered by heavy clouds, but somewhere they still shone overhead.

"Did you really need me?" Emil asked, hating that he had to ask. But he had to. It made everything different.

Lalli closed his eyes, inhaling sharply through his nose. "I did. And not only during those last few weeks."

Then Emil dared asked something he had never been able to. "What did you see? I know you looked back, even though the rest of us couldn't." His voice was hollow, but he had wondered for so long. "Was Mikkel..."

Lalli went still--so still that Emil didn't breath, afraid he might miss the answer if he made even a whisper of noise. "The last that I saw of Mikkel...he was still sitting against the tree where we had left him."

The pained voice echoed in the black box of his memories:  _Unless one of you boys has been hiding the fact that you are actually a trained surgeon, we're not going to be able to do much about a perforated bowel._ Mikkel had groaned through his own smirk, pressing a hand to the bloody mess at his waist. His other hand had struggled to pull his rifle around to his front.  _I'll try to make sure nothing follows you back home._

"How could we just leave him there?" Emil whispered, looking up at the purple-black clouds overhead. It was a question he had never fully been able to silence. It had snuck up on him time and again: when he saw a red cross sewn onto the back of a medic's uniform, when he looked out across the forests of Sweden, when he woke in the dark of night in a cold sweat.

"Because he told us to. Because we had to."

"Could we have saved him?"

"No."

Lalli's response held no room for doubt, and Emil believed him. "I know," he said. "You're right. I'm sorry."

From the corner of his eye, he saw that Lalli had turned to study his face. "For what?"

"For forcing you to be the strong one."

The door swung open behind them.

"Are you two hoping that we'll feel sorry for you if you turn yourself into icicles out here?" It was Tuuri. She leaned through the door, then took a step out onto the unnaturally warm air of the porch and accused Lalli, "You're using magic! That's cheating."

He frowned at her. "I'm a mage."

Emil laughed. And maybe it was only because he was drunk--but the fact that he could still laugh in this moment was breathtaking. He slung an arm around Lalli's shoulder, leaning into the other man for support just like he always had. Could he face the past, if he only had Lalli with him to relive it with? He put his head against Lalli's, breathing in the smell of cold snow and pine needles. He didn't know how Lalli could still smell like the forest even when they were in the middle of the city, but he always had.

"You know, I never got the two of you."

He opened his eyes and looked at Tuuri. She had an odd smile on her face, looking baffled but terribly fond of them both. "You were like that from practically the first day you met. And Lalli put up with it. But Lalli doesn't like anyone! And no one likes Lalli either, let's be honest."

"People like me," Lalli protested. She gave him a look, and he insisted: "Well, you like me."

Tuuri reached up and tugged Lalli down to give him a kiss on the forehead. "And that's all that matters, sweetie." 

 

 

By the time they went back into the house, Torbjörn was alone by the sink and he explained that Siv had gone to bed. Emil asked if he could stay on the couch, and his uncle welcomed him without any hesitation.

"We should get back to our hotel," Tuuri said, looking up at Emil as she wound a scarf around her neck. "But we will see you again, right?"

Emil nodded. This time he had no doubt that he wanted to see them both again. He needed to--but he also probably needed to fix things with Anna. "Maybe not tomorrow. I think I've really fucked things up with my girlfriend today, and there's a big family dinner at one of her aunt's tomorrow. I'll probably spend most the day groveling, and most the night pretending that I like her relatives." He tried to laugh at himself, but Tuuri looked worried. "It'll be fine. But I probably shouldn't assume that I'll be able to get away tomorrow if I'm going to make things right. The next day, though. Should I come by your hotel again?"

Tuuri nodded, still quieter than usual. "Yes, do. We'd love it if you came with us. That's the day we were going to go to the Zorn Museum. Are you still interested?"

"If it's with you guys, yes." He'd been made to visit the museum once as a student and hadn't appreciated it then. Maybe he would see it differently this time, though.

"And, Emil..." Tuuri seemed unsure how much to say. She glanced at Lalli, who had one elbow propped on Emil's shoulder, his face resting tiredly on his palm. "You're joking, aren't you? About groveling and pretending and all that?"

Emil wondered if he was. He wondered if there was something wrong with him if he wasn't. He didn't have any answer for her, and he couldn't take any more truth right now, so he just shrugged and gave her a kiss on the cheek. "I'll see you on Sunday. Have fun tomorrow without me."

Lalli lifted himself from Emil as Tuuri pulled the front door open. Emil had no hug or peck on the cheek for him. The simple gestures came easily with Tuuri, but it was different when it was Lalli.

Lalli followed Tuuri out onto the front step, then turned and gave Emil a long look. It went on so long that Emil wasn't sure if he was expected to say something. He summoned a weak smile. "See you soon?"

Lalli nodded, and then he was walking off into the dark after his cousin. Emil watched them go, hanging onto the doorframe, until they were gone from sight. Even after they had disappeared into the night, Emil still didn't go back into the house at once.

_What do I do now?_

He had opened the black box, and now he was alone with what had been inside of it.  _Sigrun... Mikkel..._ Their names burned in the back of his throat. The loss felt as fresh as if they'd only died days before. Was that his fault, because he'd shut everything away and never let himself grieve? But there hadn't been any time to grieve at first. They'd had to keep moving or they would die. By the time they'd returned to Sweden, he had already cut them out of his heart and mind. He'd had to. The nightmares were the only place that he had failed to completely erase their memories from his life.

_What kind of nightmares will I have now?_

He pulled the door shut, slowly turning the deadbolt. The familiar old house was quiet. Torbjörn had gone up to bed as well. Emil wandered down the hall to the kitchen and poured himself another glass of akvavit. It wasn't what he wanted to take away the pain, but he didn't want to make any noise banging around looking for something stronger. He sat at the long kitchen table alone, the single light hanging over his head the only illumination to be seen in the house. Leaning back in the chair, he felt the wooden carvings dig into his back. A clock was ticking somewhere on the ground floor, ticking by the seconds that Sigrun and Mikkel would never have. It was ticking by the seconds of his life, and for the first time, he wondered seriously about how he was spending it.

Emil had been wondering for some time about whether he should take the recruiter job and whether he should simply hurry up and marry Anna--but it had always just been a choice between the current status quo and a slightly different status quo. Keep dating Anna or marry Anna. Keep working as a cleanser or work as a recruiter for the cleansers. Pretend that he was over his past or pretend that he had forgotten it. He sat at the kitchen table for a long time in silence.

"I didn't forget you, Sigrun," he whispered at last into the empty room. "I know that I tried to, and that was wrong of me. No one deserves to be forgotten, and I owe you a lot more than just the decency of remembering you. I should have spent every day of the past three years telling the people on my crews about the brave Captain Eide of Norway. I should have told them what a cowardly, snot-faced kid I was, and how you made me into something. I should have been toasting to your memory, not trying to erase it. And I should have been there with Mikkel..."

He couldn't continue, not even to the silent ghosts of the dead, and he stopped to take a drink. It didn't wash down the lump in his throat; instead he almost choked on it. "I should have shouted out. The troll was coming from behind you. There was no way you could have known. If I'd just been paying more attention, Sigrun--" His eyes ground shut, and he saw her face. There hadn't been pain there. Thank god for that. Just the most complete surprise--as if she had never imagined that she would actually die. "I wish you were still here. I wish we were all still in that tank, in those first months." Emil didn't even know what he was saying as he mumbled to himself, or if he meant all of it. But it didn't matter. The dead weren't complaining.

"I'm wasting the life you gave me, aren't I, Mikkel?" He stared up at the ceiling above him. The ceiling of his aunt and uncle's house, where he had spent every holiday as a student. Had he really not changed at all since then? Deep down, was he still that clueless boy in denial about how hurt and confused and alone he was? "You would have said so. You never seemed to hold back. Maybe I could use some of that kind of honesty now..."

He was pouring more liquor into his glass when there was a scratch at the door. Emil's heart lept. He knew that sound. It was another memory from those days, but always a welcome one. It was the most comforting single association he had from Denmark: the sound that told him that Lalli had returned to him.

He stumbled from his chair, nearly upsetting it in his rush. In the hall, he flipped up the switch for the front porch light and then threw open the door. Lalli was blinking in the sudden wash of light, his hood up around his face.

"Why did you come back?"

Lalli pushed his way inside past Emil, pulling off his jacket and hanging it on a peg before bending over to work his knee-high boots off. "I was only walking Tuuri back," he explained, his quiet voice muffled even further by his position. When both boots were off, he straightened up and looked at Emil. "I couldn't let her walk back alone in the middle of the night, even in a city like this."

Emil wanted to hug Lalli, but something held him back. Then Lalli was gone, already slinking down the hall toward the living room. When Emil relocked the front door and followed him into that room, he found Lalli standing with his hands on his hips and looking appraisingly at the one long sofa. "I should have just taken you back to my hotel," Lalli grumbled. "I have a bed, at least."

"I'm sorry," Emil automatically apologized. "You don't have to stay. I don't want to ruin your vacation or anything. I'm fine here alone."

Lalli snorted. "Yes. You look very fine." His eyes were black as charcoal in the dark room and oh-so-knowing, as though he could see straight through the walls to the dining table where Emil had left his glass and the bottle of akvavit. He asked, more serious this time, "Do you want to go back to my hotel?"

Emil considered. "I want to go somewhere. Let's find somewhere."

Grumbling about why Emil couldn't have made up his mind _before_ he had taken all his gear off, Lalli stomped back to the front door. Emil grabbed him by the arm. "Never mind. It's fine. We don't have to go anywhere. I was just being stupid."

"No," Lalli said. "You were being honest. Don't lie now." Emil's hand went limp, sliding slowly down Lalli's arm.

"Okay." He nodded, swallowing hard. "Okay. I'm just going to...write a note, so Torbjörn and Siv know where I went." He went back to the kitchen and found a notepad in the junk drawer where Siv had always kept odds and ends. After trying three pens, he found one that worked and scribbled a note.  _I went out with Lalli after you went to bed. If I'm not back by the morning, I must have crashed with him._ He looked down at the words, and added  _Thanks for having me_. Then he almost crossed that out. It felt perfunctory, like he was some distant acquaintance who they'd invited around for dinner. But it would be more obvious if he crossed it out now.  _Talk to you both soon_. That would have to do.

He left the note on the table, pinned under the bottle of akvavit. He picked up his glass and threw back the rest of the liquid in it. Then he hurried back to the front door, gripping the spare key that he'd fished out of the junk drawer. After throwing on his jacket, Emil followed Lalli out the front door, locking it behind them and pocketing the key as they slipped away from the house and into the empty streets.


	6. Going Nowhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Echoes drown the conversation out_  
>  _Echoes that only seem to bring about_  
>  _A silent expression_  
>  _Things you may allow_  
>  _Going nowhere_  
>  \- Going Nowhere, Elliott Smith

**6**

They shuffled through the empty streets, passing between darkness and through the circles of yellow light that pooled beneath the widely spaced streetlights in the residential neighborhoods. Or Emil shuffled, anyway. Lalli glided, his feet barely making any noise on the packed snow that covered the pavement.

"So let's find somewhere," the mage said in a puff of warm breath.

Emil had almost forgotten his own words. That had been his brilliant suggestion, hadn't it? "Where?"

"I don't know. You're the one who said it. Where were you hoping to find?"

Emil sighed. "I don't know. Somewhere I'll never have to leave," he muttered. "But I'd settle for a bar, if we can find one open at this hour on julafton."

Lalli made a doubtful sound in his throat. Emil snorted and, to his surprise, Lalli laughed along with him. The sound brought tears to his eyes. "Fuck, I'm so drunk." He rubbed at his eyes with the back of one gloved hand. "How can you laugh?"

"At you? You make it easy."

The tears weren't quick to go away, though Emil kept blinking hard to try to keep them at bay. "I mean how can you laugh after--after everything?"

Lalli gave him a look that would've made a dagger look friendly, then the drunk Finn snapped at him, "What? Are you trying to tell me you haven't laughed in four years? Fuck right off, Emil Västerström. I watched you laughing at my cousin just this morning. You were laughing out on that porch not even an hour ago."

"Okay, fair point." Emil grumped. They walked past two more dark houses, the crunching of snow the only sound to be heard in the night. The snow had stopped falling, at least, as the temperature dropped lower and lower. The cold was like prickling needles on Emil's face, and the air burned in his nostrils with each breath. "I just meant...you seem like you're okay." Then he thought about the fact that he made himself seem okay to Anna and everyone else around him every day of his life. He stopped Lalli with a hand. "Are you okay?"

Lalli shrugged off his hand, not meeting Emil's eyes. "Of course I'm okay," he said, and there was something faintly bitter in the way he said it. He shook his head, as if he could wipe the words out of the air. "It wasn't the first time I'd seen someone die. It wasn't even the last time. I won't say that it gets easier but it gets...normal." They walked on as Emil wondered who else Lalli had seen die, both before Denmark and since they'd returned.

"I don't want that to ever be normal."

"No," Lalli agreed. "You shouldn't."

His mind was too muddied by alcohol for him to make sense of that. Was Lalli saying something bad about Emil, or himself?  Before he could figure it out, Lalli had gone on. "But you can't let it destroy you either."

 _I don't know how to stop it_. That was something Emil couldn't say out loud, not even to Lalli.  _How do I ever become okay after what happened? I thought locking it all away and never thinking about it would work, but it didn't make me better. It just made it easier to fake being okay, while quietly coming to hate every day a little more._

"I know."

Emil's head swiveled to look at Lalli. Had he let some of those words slip out? Or could Lalli see his thoughts as easily as he saw the spirits invisible to Emil's eyes?

"What do you know?" he asked unsurely.

Lalli took a while to answer, his expression too complicated to read as he strode down the icy path. "I know it's not that easy. I didn't mean to say it like that. Like it's something easy." Lalli looked up at the sky. The snow clouds were breaking apart and the brightest stars were faintly visible through the hazy wisps now. "It's not easy at all."

"Lalli, I'm tired." Emil stopped walking and stared at his feet. He stepped back and to the side, dropping down onto the steps of some stranger's house.

Lalli was looking down at him. Emil was still staring down, but he could see that Lalli's feet had stopped right in front of him, the toes of his boots pointing in his direction. He watched as those thin legs moved, and Lalli lowered himself to sit beside Emil. "I just want to stay here," he mumbled in drunken exhaustion. "Can we just stay here?"

"We can stay here," Lalli said mildly as Emil leaned into his shoulder.

"But for how long?"

"As long as you need."

"You're going back to Finland in a week."

"Oh." When Emil looked at him, he saw that Lalli's eyebrows had shot up. Apparently he hadn't realized how long Emil wanted. "Not just a break from walking then. You want to stay on this house's front step for more than a week? The owners might protest."

"You know magic." Emil smiled to himself as his cheek pressed against the damp cold of Lalli's jacket. "Couldn't you just, I don't know, blast them away or something?"

Lalli propped his chin up on one hand, looking out along the deserted Swedish street. "Those are my people's sacred gods whose power you're talking about abusing."

"So what? Are you telling me they can't do it?"

Lalli shot him a barely tolerating look. "Someday, you heathen Swede, you are going to be struck down by Ukko himself. And I am not going to lift a finger."

"Not even a finger?"

"Fine, you're right," Lalli admitted as he turned away again. "I would probably lift a finger. To point you out to him, so he knew where to strike."

Emil chuckled as Lalli smirked to himself. "You and me, Lalli," he murmured, "we need to get drunk together more often." Then the laughter seeped out of him, as though the cold of the night had leeched it away. "We need to get together more often." He sighed and his eyelids fell shut, blocking out the julafton night and the world around him. Everything spinned and tilted slightly, and Lalli's shoulder beneath his face was the only steady thing in the universe. "Where have you been, Lalli?"

As he waited for a reply that took a long time coming, Emil drifted in the darkness. When Lalli finally spoke, Emil could feel and hear the buzz of his voice straight through his back. "I have been right where you left me."

"Right," Emil mumbled, on the cusp of sleep. His eyes were too heavy to open again. "That was stupid of me. Why did I ever do that?"

"I don't know." Lalli's words were so soft that they didn't rouse Emil as he drifted between consciousness and dreams. He'd gotten so little rest last night--and now Lalli was here.  _Lalli will wake me if the alarm goes off. He always does--but where is my gun? My hands are empty, and I can't do anything without my gun..._

He jerked upright, brought back to the present with a disorienting rush. His skin prickled with cold sweat that had popped out over his skin without warning. "Lalli?"

The Finn leaned away slightly to look at him. "What?"

Emil stared back at Lalli wordlessly. It was the older Lalli, with his shoulder-length hair escaping from the sloppy ponytail at the base of his neck. This Lalli wasn't wearing an expedition uniform but a fur-trimmed jacket of heavy green cloth and boots of dark brown leather. And most importantly, this Lalli was sitting on a street in the middle of a Swedish town on a quiet holiday night. There was no danger here, no need for alarms or guns.  _We're safe. We're not there. We're safe._

That was when the tears came at last. Emil squeezed his eyes shut, burying his face in his arms, but they still escaped from the corners of his eyes and burned their way down his face. He felt himself shaking from the effort of keeping them from tearing him apart. The tremors he'd held back for more than three years wracked his body, and for the first time ever, he cried for Sigrun and Mikkel. He cried for Reynir and Tuuri and Lalli and for himself. He cried for what they'd all had to live through, and everything they had lost on that expedition--and everything they had lost since. The tears were hot against his cold skin, and he swiped at the snot running from his nose as he pressed his face hard against the rough weave of his twill jacket. The ugly sounds he tried to swallow broke through the quiet night as he sat beside Lalli on a stranger's step and went to pieces.

" _Fuck,"_ Emil groaned into his jacket, his voice muffled even to his own ears. "Why did they have die? How could we be the ones to survive? We were just a bunch of stupid kids." He shook his head, thumping one gloved fist against the side of his head. Not hard enough to hurt exactly, just hard enough to feel.

Lalli sat still and silent beside him. He didn't offer pretty words or try to soothe away Emil's grief. He just waited until Emil had run out of tears. When Emil finally stopped sniffling, Lalli climbed to his feet and spoke, as though nothing in particular had happened. "Come on. I'll let you sleep in my bed if you promise not to vomit on it."

Emil smiled into the damp cloth of his jacket sleeve, then finally lifted his head. He saw that Lalli was holding a hand out to him, standing against the backdrop of the city surrounding them--a dark scene painted in a palette of grainy yellow and gray. "Always knew I could count on you," he quipped, though his voice shook a bit more than he liked. He put his gloved hand in Lalli's and let the Finn drag him to his feet. Lalli got him safely back to the hotel in Strandgatan, and this time they went straight through the lobby and up a flight of stairs to the guest rooms. Emil stood mutely by as Lalli stopped in front of one of the identical doors that lined the long hall and pulled a key from his pocket. Once the door was open, he pushed Emil into the dark room ahead of him. Lalli sat Emil down on the edge of the double bed and pulled his shoes off for him. Then he gave him a slight shove, and Emil fell back on the bed, still in his damp jacket, and slept.

 

 

Emil woke on Saturday morning not sure where he was. When he peeled his sticky eyes open, he looked up at a strange ceiling that he had no recollection of ever seeing before. He rolled to the side and found Lalli sleeping next to him on a hotel bed. The sight made him feel safe in a way he wouldn't have been able to put into sensible words even if he hadn't been recovering from a night of hard drinking. He decided that dealing with reality could wait a few more hours.

But Lalli was as light of a sleeper as ever. Just as Emil was thinking to close his eyes and drift back off to sleep, he saw those pale blond brows furrow. Lalli didn't open his eyes before he asked in a thick voice, "Emil?"

"Yeah?"

The papery lids lifted, and Lalli looked at him with heavy-looking eyes. He looked about as bad as Emil felt, which meant that Emil probably looked about as bad himself. "Why did we drink so much?"

"You had already drunk most of that before I got there, so don't blame me."

"They are your aunt and uncle. I'm pretty sure I can still blame you."

Emil rolled up from the bed--then stopped a moment to let the pounding in his head subside. He stood much more slowly, bracing himself against the wall so that he didn't have to count on his own tenuous balance alone. Lalli watched him from flat on his back, making no effort to move himself.

"Mind if I use your shower?" Emil asked. Lalli gave a nearly imperceptible shrug. Emil knew Lalli well enough to know that if he didn't like something, he would make it known. That was all the permission he needed to let himself into the small ensuite bathroom and fumble the shower on. He stripped off his clothes and stepped into the stream, planting his hands on the wall beneath the shower head and leaning forward so that the water poured over his head and neck.

A few minutes under the steaming water made him feel human enough to look around the small shower stall. There were no bottles to be seen, but there was a bar of some kind of soap in a metal tin. He picked it up and gave it a sniff.  _Lalli_. The smell _was_ Lalli. He stared at the waxy brown lump on his palm. He had no idea what was in it, but it held the smell of snow and pine that he always associated with Lalli. Emil rubbed the bar between his hands, building of a thick lather of the fragrant soap. He scrubbed his face and then, after hesitating a moment, ran his hands through his hair as well. Lalli's hair always smelled of the stuff and there was nothing else in the shower, so he had to assume it wouldn't turn his hair into a solid hank of knots.

As the soap was washed away by the hot water, the smell of the forest filled the small room, and Emil propped his forearm against the shower wall, leaning his weight into it. He was pretty sure he remembered most of the walk from his uncle's house. He definitely remembered breaking down and crying. He had gone to his uncle's house to get away from the things he didn't like about his current life and had found himself facing everything he had been running away from instead. But what he'd said to Lalli the night before was true--he was tired. He didn't like what his life had become, and he couldn't deny it any longer.

Emil switched off the shower and stepped out onto the small mat, grabbing a towel from the wall. He dried himself off, toweling his short hair roughly. He didn't seem to have damaged it with Lalli's mystery soap. Once he pulled his clothes back on, he stuck his head out the bathroom door, letting out the steam as he checked on Lalli. The Finn was still lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling blankly. "Lalli?"

"Still here."

With a ghost of a smile, Emil leaned against the door. "Can I use your razor?"

Lalli grumbled up at the light fixture hanging from the ceiling, "You've already used everything else of mine. Why stop now?"

"Good point."

Lalli gave him a glare that suggested he would have liked to have thrown something at Emil if moving weren't such a dilemma. Emil ducked back into the bathroom before Lalli could reconsider whether or not he was actually too hungover to attack.

 

 

There was a knock at the door.

"That's Tuuri." Lalli's voice drifted out of the bathroom. Once Emil had finished cleaning himself up and stepped back into the hotel room, Lalli had slipped past him and locked himself in the bathroom next. He'd already pissed out half a bottle of akvavit and showered, from what Emil had overheard, and was probably taking his own turn with the razor that Emil had rinsed and left on the edge of the sink.

It had been a nice razor. Emil would have been impressed in Lalli's taste--but it had probably been bought for him by someone else. Maybe Tuuri. He couldn't imagine Lalli bothering to buy anything nice for himself, or really anything at all for himself. Lalli existed disconnected from day-to-day life in a way that made you just want to take care of him, making sure he remained properly fed and clothed. Or was it only Emil who got that urge?

"You sure it's her?" he called back, raising his voice to be heard in the bathroom.

"Yes."

Emil didn't know whether Lalli could somehow sense something spiritually, or if he simply assumed that she was the only one who would be knocking on his door, but he was right regardless. As soon as Emil pulled the door open, a stream of grumbling Finnish greeted him. Then it broke off as Tuuri said in surprise, "Emil!?"

He grinned at her haggard face. He was feeling quite a bit better after his shower, though his head still throbbed if he moved it too quickly. "I take it you're also feeling the effects of last night?"

She didn't immediately respond to him, instead leaning through the doorway to call out a question in Finnish to Lalli. Emil didn't understand the demand in her voice any more than he understood the Finnish words themselves, but when Lalli's response came through the bathroom door, he caught the word  _ei--_ which he knew meant "no." Before he could question what the exchange had been about, Tuuri turned her attention back on him. "Sorry. It was just a surprise...to find you here." She rubbed at her temple. "And yes, I have some serious regrets about last night."

Emil waved her in and offered her the lone chair, sitting himself on the edge of the bed. "How did you end up here this morning?" Tuuri asked in a careful tone, leaning back in her chair.

"Lalli came back to Siv and Torbjörn's last night. Didn't he tell you he was going to?" Emil asked. He shot a glance at Lalli, who had just stepped out of the bathroom. Something in his chest clenched for a moment. Today Lalli was dressed in a loose white sweater, and the effect was so similar to the outfit he used to wear when off-duty as the crew's scout that Emil could have just stumbled into the tank, four years earlier. Only the long hair and the heavier eyes told him that they weren't still 19 years old.

Luckily Tuuri had no such reaction to the sight of Lalli, and she said accusingly in his direction, "No, he did not tell me he was planning on going back out."

Lalli shrugged as he padded over to the bed and sat next to Emil to start pulling on his boots. "I was up anyway, so I went back to check on Emil. We were going to look for a place to get a drink, but..." His gray eyes went to Emil's. "It was taking awhile to find anyplace, and we got tired. So I told Emil he could just sleep here."

"Of course you did," Tuuri said in a voice dripping with some insinuation Emil didn't understand. But he saw the evil look Lalli leveled in Tuuri's direction. Tuuri turned back to him. "So, does this mean you're joining us today? Not that I am objecting."

It was tempting to just say yes. It would be easier than patching things up with Anna. But Tuuri and Lalli would go back to Finland in a week, and his life with Anna would be all he would have then. Besides, she deserved better. They had been together two years, and he had stormed out in the middle of a family meal on the biggest holiday of the year--even if it was to visit his own family, it hadn't exactly been well done of him. He needed to give her and their life together a fair chance. He needed to tell Anna about Denmark.

"No. I'm going to go." He managed a wan smile through his hangover and despite his nervousness about what he was about to do. "But thanks for the invitation. I'll hold you to it tomorrow." 

 

 

It was nearly noon by the time that Emil knocked on the Lindstöm's door. He'd taken his time walking back, making a detour through Kyrkogatan to stop by Mora Kaffestuga. There he had ordered a small coffee and sat awhile, slowly sipping away his headache and thinking about how he was going to explain things. Then he'd bought an entire box of saffron buns to take back with him, as an offering of peace and just because it was the jul season. He held them in front of him like a shield when the door was pulled open, Anna standing in the narrow space with her hand still on the knob.

She looked at him for a moment with her lips pressed together in an unhappy line. Then she sighed. "Welcome back."

"Thanks," he said tentatively, as she pulled the door further open and let him in.

"I was just thinking about heating something up for lunch, if you're hungry," she said, stepping back so he had space to wrestle his way out of his jacket and boots. "Or we still have some rice pudding left. I know you like it."

Emil paused, then shrugged the rest of the way out of his jacket. "Thanks. I do." He held out the cardboard box. "I got saffron buns."

"From Kaffestuga?"

He gave her a small grin as he nodded, and Anna took the box when he pushed it into her hands. It was her favorite bakery in Mora. He knew all her stories: how her father would take her there for special Sunday mornings as a girl, treating her with sweet cakes and mulled cider. Anna held it up to her nose and took a deep breath of the warm yeasty smell, the tight lines of her face easing. She clutched the box to her chest like it was a life preserver. "Thank you," she said softly. "I'm sorry about last night. How were your aunt and uncle?"

Emil followed her into the kitchen and gave her a brief update on Siv and Torbjörn and the kids, leaving out any talk about the rest of the events of his night. That could wait. Neither of them said much more about the way Emil had left the night before. Perhaps Anna felt guilty as well for the way the previous night had gone. There was a careful tension in the way they each spoke, but she heated up a bowl of rice pudding for him and let her hand brush through his hair when she left it front of him.

As he was eating at the kitchen table, Anna's mother returned from whatever errands she'd been attending to. Lunch was thrown together from the leftovers of the julbord meal, and Emil was made to eat again, even though he had just finished a large bowl of rice pudding. After the three had shared a subdued lunch, he and Anna helped her mother wash the dishes, then Anna volunteered them to help with the laundry. All the special linens and napkins from the dinner the night before had to be laundered before they could be put away again until the next year. Emil didn't complain. He was grateful for the chance to put things off even a few more hours--but eventually the chores were done and there was nothing else to do but get cleaned up before the dinner that evening.

He trooped up the stairs behind Anna to the room that they shared whenever they stayed at her parents' place. Emil quietly swung the door shut, holding the handle so that it wouldn't click too loudly. He stood with his back to it, looking at Anna, and said, "Anna, there are some things I think I need to explain."

She glanced back at him, stopping in the middle of pulling clothes from the small suitcase she'd brought with her from Östersund. When she saw the serious look on his face, she moved over to the bed and sat down upon it. "What is it?"

Emil went to sit beside her, lowering himself onto the bed as his mind raced for the right words. "It's about what's been going with me. Which is about what happened four years ago." He took a deep breath. "It's about what happened on the expedition."

She didn't say anything, though her brows furrowed as she looked at him with eyes full of concern. Emil turned away. He couldn't talk about it while looking at her. Focussing his own eyes on the wall opposite them, he rubbed his face and caught a whiff of pine from his skin.  _Lalli_. Emil took a deep breath, letting the reassuring scent fill his lungs and mind, and then he finally began to talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That _was_ sort of going nowhere. But there will be some more, ahem, conflict in the next chapter.


	7. Between the Bars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Drink up, baby, stay up all night_  
>  _With the things you could do, you won't but you might_  
>  _The potential you'll be that you'll never see_  
>  _The promises you'll only make_  
>  \- Between the Bars, Elliot Smith

**7**

 

And so Emil told Anna about Sigrun. He explained in halting, stumbling words how she had been the first person to ever treat him as reliable and worthy of her trust. How she had taught him to be brave and true and not give in to fear or doubts. Retelling it now made him realize that he had forgotten too many of those lessons when he had locked away her memory. Sigrun wouldn't have run away from the memories of a friend's death. She would have grimaced and taken a swig of something and then gone off in search of something to kill.

Emil told Anna about the terrible moment when the troll grabbed Sigrun by shoulder, wrapping another arm around her waist, and then  _pulled._ He told her how he had seen the thing coming seconds before, and how he had failed to call out in time. There hadn't been fear or pain or even anger on Sigrun's face. He was sure Sigrun would have been angry, if there had been enough time for that, that anything dared to stop her in her relentless campaign against trollkind. But there had only been enough time for a moment of innocent surprise and then nothing. As she was torn apart, her face had gone as slack as a doll. The light had gone out from her eyes and blood had flown across the grey walls of the old building, and something had given up within Mikkel as well. Emil was sure of it, even now. He could have been more cautious. He probably could have kept himself alive--but he hadn't.

He told how he, Lalli, and Mikkel had run desperately for the tank, struggling to fight off the trolls that came slamming down the narrow halls after them. They hadn't been distracted long by Sigrun's remains. Mikkel had been clutching at his stomach as the white pants of his uniform turned a dark red that had looked nearly black. He described in merciless detail how they made it back to the edge of the town, where the tank had been parked, and eased Mikkel down against the rough bark of a bare-limbed maple tree. He remembered how Mikkel had patted his leg, that being the highest he could reach from his position on the ground. "Take care of them," Mikkel had told him. "Sigrun thought you were a real viking. Don't you let her down."

And Lalli had looked seriously down at the big Dane, then he had pulled out that tiny Finnish knife of his and pressed it into the medic's shaking hand, coated with blood and worse. It had seemed like a meaningless gesture--what would such a tiny blade do against the trolls coming after them? It was a long time before Emil understood that Lalli might have given Mikkel the knife to use on himself, should it come to that. He remembered praying that the medic would know the most painless way to quickly bring an end to things for himself.

He told Anna how Lalli had been the one to pull him away, and how he had hated Lalli for that--and also felt the most terrible sense of gratitude, because thank god that Lalli had been strong enough to walk away. Emil wouldn't have been able to leave Mikkel there otherwise, but he _had_ been able to let Lalli force him into the tank.

Snapping out a few terse words in Finnish, Lalli had shoved Emil down into the passenger seat and pulled the heavy metal door shut behind himself. Tuuri had given a strangled cry and, with a shuddering sob, she had started the engine and shoved the tank into gear. Reynir had protested, shouting and trying to fight past Lalli to the door, so Lalli had punched the Icelander right in the nose, dropping him to the floor. And then they had driven away. Tuuri's eyes had stayed fixed on the road ahead, Emil's vision had been blurry with tears he refused to let fall, and Reynir had been mercifully unconscious. Only Lalli had turned back to watch the path behind them with a face that could have been carved in ice. He had been the only one of them with the strength and decency to watch over Mikkel as they abandoned him. 

And then they had driven into hell. They'd known they had no choice but to turn back without Sigrun and Mikkel's guidance and protection. If any of them got seriously injured, they would have been done for. So Tuuri had driven relentlessly, only stopping when her tears overwhelmed her so much that she couldn't safely see where she was pointing the tank. She couldn't risk running over Emil or Lalli, who would spend the long days outside guarding the tank and finding safe paths back through the overgrown world. But her tears dried up before too long, and then her eyes stayed red and dry and fixed on the path ahead.

Emil had spent his days close to the tank, on the lookout for trouble, while Lalli ranged farther ahead. The two of them could hardly communicate back then, but they had both understood the truth of the situation--it had been up to them to get the surviving crew members back to Öresund, or they would all die out there. They had stopped bothering with decontamination immediately. It wasn't worth the time or the trouble, when every day was a desperate rush to get out of the wild before they lost another crew member. They couldn't afford to lose anyone else and still hope to ever get home. Instead they would make Reynir and Tuuri keep their masks on, and would stumble straight in from the wild to whatever surface was available to rest on.

There had been battles. Times when Lalli came back from scouting white faced and splattered with something else's blood. Times when Emil walked straight into some beast as he paced in front of the tank. Times when the trolls had nearly gotten through the tank's hull, as the crew had tried to outrun a pack too big for only Emil and Lalli to fight off. If it hadn't been for Lalli's magic, they would have been plucked out of the metal cage like rats from a trap.

When they hadn't been fighting off monsters, they had done whatever little else they needed to stay alive. They had slowly eaten through the remaining stores of their tinned muck. No one had cared enough to make a fire, so they would eat it cold--and as the days went on, they had simply started to eat less and less of the terrible stuff. Meals went from three times a day to two. Then sometimes to just one. They had slept and lived in their uniforms, no reason to bother with cleanliness when they might all be dead soon anyway. No one would ever come for their bodies. There would be no one to impress.

Conversation had dwindled and disappeared even faster than the food. None of them could talk to one another except through Tuuri, and she began sleeping on Sigrun's old bunk, her face to the wall, every hour that she wasn't driving. Days would pass by without a word exchanged as Emil and Lalli went about their mechanical routines: cleaning their weapons and setting out, day after day, into the uncaring world. Neither had tried to talk to Reynir, who had become like a ghost, wandering around the tank aimlessly as he alternated between cleaning every surface with single-minded obsession and staring dumbly at the metal walls. They didn't even try to talk to each other. Lalli would hold up a hand in silent farewell each time they parted ways. Emil would wrap an arm around Lalli's wild head of hair each time he came back, knocking their foreheads together.

When they had gotten to the bridge, they'd only made it halfway before they had to abandon the tank. There hadn't been any sections left strong enough to take its weight. They'd had no choice but to take their chances on foot. Reynir and Tuuri had both filled every bag they could carry with books. Emil and Lalli had taken weapons. Then they had set off on foot, wondering if perhaps someone would come back to retrieve the rest of the books someday. They had stumbled across the last several kilometers of the great Öresund bridge, climbing over broken supports and avoiding the crumbling areas that had nearly collapsed. When the foursome had finally arrived at the far end, they had stood at the edge and screamed till they were hoarse, crying and falling to the ground when the Danes noticed them and began lowering the ramp that would bring them back to safety. As the masked Danes helped them off their feet, leading them stumbling back to civilization, Emil had taken just one look back at the long-dead world where the rest of crew would never be found again. And that was how Emil had become a hero of the Silent World.

 

 

When Emil ran out of words, he fell silent and looked down at his trembling hands where they were turned palm up in his lap. He'd begun shaking before he was even halfway through the story, and he couldn't stop the tremors now. He was sitting on the edge of Anna's childhood bed, and she was sitting beside him close enough for him to feel her warmth. She lifted a hand but it hesitated somewhere inches from him before she gently set it on his shoulder. "Emil, I'm so sorry that seeing your old crewmates has brought all these horrible memories back for you. Maybe we should cut things short here in Mora. We can go back home tomorrow, and I bet you'll feel better." Her eyes were dark and worried as she peered at him. "Do you want to talk some more? I know that my aunt was expecting us at five, but I'll just go phone her and..."

_Tell her that your boyfriend is having a breakdown and we're not going to make it?_

"I'll explain why we're running late. After dinner, you and I can go somewhere nice and quiet, and--"

"No."

The shaking in his hands grew worse, and he buried his face in them to try to hold them steady, his fingers pressed hard against his forehead. He had decided to tell her everything because he'd wanted to give her a real chance at understanding what he was going through. But telling it all--reliving it all--had left him feeling exposed and stripped raw, and he couldn't even imagine sitting through another night of inane small talk and forced smiles. He couldn't imagine doing anything except perhaps disappearing into the bottom of a bottle of something that would make him forget everything again--for even a little while. How had he thought this was going to make anything better? He really was an idiot.

He didn't even blame Anna. She had grown up in the safety of Sweden's cleansed areas. To her, fighting for your life against a troll was about as imaginable as flying in an Old World aeroplane. Anna was exactly who he had been up until he was fourteen: raised in a well-to-do family in a city where trolls were hardly more than stories told to scare children into behaving properly. She was who he had still really been until he was nineteen, when the biggest crisis he could imagine in life was being a nobody in society.

It wasn't her fault. The only one who he could possibly blame was himself, for expecting something that she never could have given him. She could say she was sorry, and she could pat him on the back, but she didn't really understand. It made him resent her and envy her in equal regards, and he didn't trust himself to open his mouth as the dark emotions roiled through him.

"Emil..." Anna put a cautious hand on his leg. "Everyone is going to be expecting us, and--"

Something in Emil seemed to snap.

"No." He pulled away, standing up and pacing across the room. "Were you even listening to me? I've never told  _anyone_ about what happened out there. No one but the inquest members at the Nordic Council. I shared with you the worst parts of my life and you--you think this is a great time to go play nice with all your relatives? What makes you think that I would even give a damn about that?"

She struggled for words, looking she had been punched in the gut. "They're my _family_ , Emil. If you still care about me, you should understand that--"

"If _you_  still care about _me_ , Anna, then you should understand that this is bigger to me than some annual family get-together!"

Anna jumped up and grabbed him by the hands. "Okay, Emil! I get it!" She reached up to grip his shoulder, pulling him to face her. "I'm sorry, okay? I just..."  Her hand cupped his face as she looked earnestly up at him. "I don't know what to say. About any of this. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that it happened. I'm sorry I don't know how to help make it better for you. I wish I did, but I...I don't."

Neither of them said anything as Emil stared at the floor, feeling Anna studying him. He screwed his eyes shut.

"What do you want to do now?" she asked hesitantly after he'd been silent for over a minute. "Do you not want to go to dinner?"

Emil sighed. "Can I be honest right now, Anna? Really honest, for once? Because there is nothing that I want less than to go to that dinner."

He looked up in time to see the flash of hurt pass over her face, and he wished that he hadn't. He wasn't trying to make her feel bad--but he was also tired of being the only one who did feel bad. There was something wrong with that. Shouldn't he try to be actually happy, too? Didn't he have the right to that much--or had he forfeited it when he'd let Sigrun die and left Mikkel alone with the monsters?

"You go," he said in a heavy voice, dropping back onto the bed. "You should. It means more to you. I think...I just want to be alone for a while."

 

 

Emil banged on Lalli's door without pause until it was yanked open from the inside. He nearly fell into the room and into Lalli, who was standing there with an expression of annoyed confusion. It quickly changed to disbelief when he saw that it was Emil at his hotel door.

"The systembolaget was closed," Emil explained, slumping against the doorframe. "So I found a bar and bribed the bartender into selling me a bottle." He held up a bottle of vodka with a sloppy grin.

"I don't understand half of what you just said."

Emil peered at Lalli's grim face. "The systembolaget. Closed. I bought liquor. Illegally."

"What is a systembolaget?"

"What is a--?" Emil scoffed. "Poor little Finn. Welcome to the joys of civilization! Where the government won't allow you to buy alcohol except at designated shops and only during designated hours! It's truly a wondrous country you've come to, don't you think?"

Lalli snatched the open bottle away and took a swig, as though he couldn't deal with an Emil this drunk otherwise. Then he walked back into the hotel room, leaving the door open for Emil to follow if he so chose. Emil did, kicking the door shut behind himself.

"Do I understand this right?" Lalli asked, dropping onto the rumpled bed and leaning back on one hand. The other hand raised the bottle again to his lips. He took a drink, swallowed, then asked, "Your country keeps fully-grown adults from being able to purchase alcohol whenever they please?"

"That we do." Emil stripped off his jacket, letting it drop to the floor as he threw himself on the bed beside Lalli.

"Why?"

"Dunno. It's an Old World thing. Guess they wanted to keep people from becoming useless, depressed alcoholics after the Rash struck?"

"Like you are trying to turn yourself into now?" Lalli said, taking another drink. Maybe he was trying to finish it off so that Emil couldn't drink anymore. If so, he was too fucking late, because Emil was already drunk as a skunk. "And how much did you pay for this privilege?"

"A hundred kronor." Emil watched as Lalli choked on the vodka, dribbling out a good 5 kr worth of alcohol as he coughed up a mouthful. "I really am an idiot, aren't I?"

"Yes, Emil. You really are."

"I think I'm having a breakdown."

Lalli sighed. "Have another drink then," he suggested, shoving the bottle back into Emil's hand so that he could flop back flat onto the bed. "Seems like a brilliant plan." His heavy-lidded eyes slid shut, and Emil wondered if the other man had been sleeping before he banged on the door. He looked at his watch and it took him a few seconds to get both his eyes to focus on the tiny arms. It was past midnight. And, now that he thought about it, he had kept Lalli up half the night before as well.

Emil crawled onto the bed, lying sideways across it as he laid back against Lalli, using the other man's stomach as a pillow. Lalli made a protesting noise, but Emil ignored it and lifted the arm with the bottle. He had to sit up slightly to take a drink, and his abs shook from the effort. Once he'd swallowed a mouthful of the burning liquid, he dropped back down onto Lalli. The Finn grunted, his breath whooshing out of him. He growled, "Damn it, Emil!"

"Yeah. Damn it all," Emil agreed.

"Give me the fucking bottle."

Emil passed up the bottle as he had been told to do. He was too drunk to question why Lalli was in such a foul mood. It didn't change a thing. Lalli could have cursed him out, and he still wouldn't know anywhere else he would want to be. Who else could he go to but Lalli? No one else understood. No one else was Lalli. But Lalli was going back to Finland in seven days, and then Emil would have no one again.  _No. You'll have Anna. Your girlfriend, you idiot._

He watched from the corner of his eye as Lalli took several swigs from the bottle. It had been two-thirds full when Emil had gotten that bartender to part ways with it. Emil had drunk about half of that on his way to Lalli. He squinted at the bottle and the small amount of liquid still sloshing around in its base.

"Gimme that," he demanded. When Lalli didn't immediately comply, he crawled up over the Finn's prone body to wrestle the bottle from his hand. He sat for a moment on top of Lalli, taking a long drink as Lalli watched him through slitted eyes. Emil didn't give the bottle back when he scooched back down the bed to return to his spot, thumping his head back down on Lalli's stomach again. 

"I think you ruined my life," Emil said as he rubbed the back of his head against that flat stomach, looking for a more comfortable position.

"You say _I_ ruined _your_ life?" Lalli repeated, his voice tight.

"No, no, I know. You saved my life. I know that. But I had things _together_  before you and Tuuri showed up. My life was working as of--what, two days ago? Three? I had managed to build something out of the wreckage of--of Denmark. Then you two showed up, and it all came tumbling down."

"Maybe it needed to come down then," Lalli said icily.

"Don't be mad," Emil wheedled, rolling to the side to look up Lalli's chest toward his face. "I said that you saved me. You saved me a million times in a million different ways. Maybe you're right, and maybe you're saving me again right now." He laughed bleakly. "Saving me from a life that I don't even really want or care about." He thought again about Anna.

"Have you ever been in love?" Emil asked. He could feel the muscles beneath his cheek move as Lalli tensed up.

"Yes."

"How did you know?"

Lalli sat up with a stormy expression on his face, dumping Emil unceremoniously onto the bed. If Emil had been less drunk, he might have taken back the question. But he wanted to know, and as drunk as he was, he saw no reason not to get what he wanted. He propped himself up on an elbow, staring at Lalli where the other man was sitting on the far side of the bed with his elbows propped on his knees. Lalli sighed.

"I just knew. Maybe it's different for other people."

Emil couldn't deny that Lalli was not like most people he had met, so maybe his experience wouldn't be much help in figuring out how he felt about Anna. But he still wanted to know. "Then tell me how it was for you."

Lalli's eyes lingered on him for a long time, then the Finn turned and looked out the small window into the dark night. The street lights were off. They might have electricity enough in Mora, but that was no reason to waste it by running light all night when no one was out and about.

"I don't like people in general. Being around people makes me tired. But I liked being around him. I wanted to be beside him even more than I wanted to left be alone. I couldn't stand the thought of losing him or anything happening to him. And when I did lose him, every day seemed darker. Like the sun had gone behind a cloud and never come back out again, leaving everything dim and chilled and a little bit less."

It sounded beautiful and sad and completely unlike anything he'd ever experienced with Anna. On the rare weekends when Anna went to Mora on her own to visit her family and he was left alone in the apartment they shared, Emil felt...free.

He decided he didn't want to think about her or their relationship. He was more interested in hearing what Lalli would tell him after drinking a quarter of a bottle of vodka. He had plenty of questions after three years, and one in particular that he'd been wanting to ask since they'd met in the hotel lobby the previous morning. "Were you always into guys?"

Lalli gave him the sort of look you give a mangy dog that keeps peeing on your floors. "I wasn't 'into' anyone until I was."

"What does that mean?"

Lalli shrugged. "I wasn't ever really interested when I was young. In men or women."

"But you were interested in that guy. And obviously you're interested in your current boyfriend, who I guess is not the same guy, since everything you said was in the past tense." Lalli shrugged and his fingers gripped the comforter on the bed, as though he needed to anchor himself in place. "How did you know you were interested in guys like  _that_ , though? Like, how did you know that you weren't just really good friends?"

"I knew."

"But  _how?_ "

"Because I wanted to do things like this." He unfurled and crawled across the mattress. Emil blinked dumbly as Lalli climbed atop him, slinging a leg over his hips and pinning him down against the bed by his shoulders.

"Like this?" Emil asked. His heart hammered against his ribs, and the dim room began spinning faster than it already had been.

"You wanted to know, didn't you?" Lalli's thin fingers slipped under the hem of Emil's shirt, tickling across his stomach and circling around his ribs as he bent down to bring his face closer. Emil could smell the vodka on his breath as it washed over him. "I'm trying to help you understand through example. Since you _are_ an idiot, as you keep reminding me." Closing the last few inches between them, he caught Emil's lower lip in a brief kiss. Emil felt Lalli's lips tugging teasingly at his, a nip of teeth as Lalli toyed with him. It was probably just Lalli proving a point. He probably should have shoved the other man away or burst out laughing. He probably should have done anything but what he did, because Emil reached a hand up to drag Lalli closer and deepen the kiss. He simply wasn't in the mood for teasing.

With one hand digging into the hair that Lalli had tied back in a loose ponytail, Emil let the nearly empty bottle of liquor roll away across the mattress. It freed up his left hand to likewise clutch at the back of Lalli's neck and hold him trapped as their mouths and tongues met in a car crash of a kiss. It was different. Lalli tasted different. Beneath the alcohol, he tasted of something cool and clean. Had he brushed his teeth before Emil barged into his room? He could feel stubble rough against his skin when Lalli's chin rubbed against his. The jaw against the heel of his hand was sharper and squarer than Anna's, and she was the only person he had kissed in over two years. So maybe kissing anyone new at all would have felt strange and thrilling and forbidden--or maybe it was just Lalli.

Lalli broke free for a second to rear back. He grabbed Emil's shirt by the hem and pulled it up over his head. Emil had a moment, through the blur of the hair falling into his eyes, to let the sight of a Lalli straddling his half-naked body sink in. Then Lalli had bent over again, kissing, licking, and biting his way up Emil's chest. "Fuck, Lalli,"Emil groaned as that merciless mouth arrived at the sensitive skin along his neck. He let his eyes fall shut, shuddering at the sensations that danced and melded and then spun away from his incapacitated mind. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been seduced. It was more intoxicating than the vodka had been. With Anna, it was all up to him to please her and rare that she returned the favor with this much enthusiasm.  _I figured men have to do all the work--and sex with Anna is a one-man show. Maybe I just needed a two-man show._

The thought struck him as suddenly hilarious. He snorted with laughter, and Lalli stopped to look at him. "Don't stop," he growled, reaching out to grab Lalli's shirt and try to yank it off. It didn't work as smoothly for him--his fingers seemed oddly clumsy after 10 or 12 shots of vodka--but Lalli helped squirm out of the tangled shirt himself, pulling it impatiently over his head. Emil rolled over the Finn, taking his turn to hold Lalli down at his mercy. He had the advantage of weight, since he easily had thirty pounds on the thin scout. He knew the body beneath him--had seen it bare during countless decontaminations years ago--but now it was his to explore in a way that he hadn't ever guessed he might want to. Suddenly he wanted to.

They wrestled across the bed for control, with Lalli's nails digging and scratching into Emil's bare back and Emil gripping the scout's thin arms in a bruising grip as his mouth wandered, leaving a trail of red marks across the pale, flat expanses of Lalli's chest and back. Someone kicked the bedside table, and the lamp fell to the floor, luckily hitting the rug. Emil didn't notice the sound of anything breaking anyway. But then he rolled them too far in the other direction, and he tipped over the edge of the mattress, unable to keep his balance when his mind was moving about three seconds behind his body. They fell to the ground in a tangled mess, and Emil's groan was half a growl as he tasted the bright tang of blood in the kiss that he still refused to release Lalli from.

Eventually they made it back onto the bed. What remained of their clothes, though, did not.


	8. No Name #4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It's our secret. Do not tell, okay?_  
>  _Let's just not talk about it_  
>  _Don't tell, okay?_  
>  _Let's just forget all about it_  
>  \- No Name #4, Elliott Smith

**8**  

 

Emil opened his eyes and the morning light stabbed straight through them and into his brain like a needle. When he moved, he felt the pulling sting of scratches all over his back and chest. He recognized the ceiling above his aching head. He was in a hotel room. Lalli's hotel room.

Lalli was sitting in the wooden chair beside the window, watching him, and Emil was naked amid a tangle of sheets. _Oh...shit._ A jumble of memories slammed into him, dark and blurred and strange, and he felt his body stirring even as his mind went white with disbelief. He lurched off the bed in a clumsy attempt to grab at the clothes littered on the worn rugs. Bile was rising in his throat. "Lalli," he started, stepping into this trousers and zipping them up. "I'm so sorry. I was so drunk--"

"Of course you were. We both were. It never would have happened otherwise." There was a tight thread of anger pulling Lalli's voice taut, and Emil wasn't sure which one of them Lalli was angry at. He was sure he deserved that anger the most, though. What had he _done_? He felt sick as he looked around the floor for the shirt he had been wearing last night. There. By the window. He lunged for it, trying not to vomit when the sudden move made his stomach heave in protest.

Lalli was looking steadily out the window now, lit by the weak gray light of the pre-dawn morning, and Emil stopped with his shirt still hanging from his hand. He couldn't form a rational thought past the noise filling his brain and his eyes felt like they were made out of sandpaper, but even he could see how stiffly Lalli was sitting. "Are you okay?"

The Finn shrugged, then winced slightly from the motion. "Lalli?" Emil felt nauseous and it wasn't just the hangover now.  "Did I hurt you?" He hadn't known what he was doing--had been too drunk to even question what he was doing--but he remembered Lalli crying out beneath him. Had those been cries of pleasure or of pain? He couldn't be sure. It was all like a dream, already slipping away from him now in the light of day.

Lalli's face was inscrutable as he studied Emil's face. Finally he said, "Physically?"

"In _any_ way, Lalli. Oh god." He dropped back onto the edge of the bed. He couldn't remember if Lalli had ever tried to stop him--if he'd ever said no. "Did you not want to..."

He wasn't ready to put it into words. Lalli still didn't move but he said simply, "I wanted to." He gave a tight little smile. It was an expression Emil had never seen from Lalli--the type of face that you made when you were forcing yourself to be generous to someone who didn't deserve it. When had Lalli learned the arts of such social lies? When had he started to need them for Emil? "You didn't force me to do anything that I wasn't an equal participant in. Like I said--we were both drunk."

"But are you okay?"

"Fine." The lone word was so final that Emil didn't dare ask a third time. He didn't want to push Lalli into a rage--or something worse.

He thrust his arms into his shirt's sleeves, slowing pulling it up and over his head. "Lalli," he asked at last. "Are _we_ okay?"

Lalli's eyes closed and he slid his hands under the long hair that was hanging loose around his face this morning. He pressed the palms of his heels over his ears in a gesture that Emil hadn't seen in years, then he seemed to catch himself. He lowered his hands, curling them into bony fists instead. "Just go, Emil. Go."

He couldn't refuse if that was what Lalli wanted--he couldn't refuse anything Lalli asked of him right now. And if he was being honest, he was glad for the excuse to run away. He needed to figure out what the hell he had just done. He toed on his shoes with bare feet, wadding his drawers and socks up and stuffing them into the pockets of his trousers. He threw his jacket over the whole mess and paused, his hands hanging from the lapels. Lalli still had his eyes fixed on the small window, and Emil couldn't bear to creep out of the room like some one-night stand. It felt dirty. _What the hell have I done to us?_

"Will I still... Can I still meet you later?" Lalli didn't respond, so Emil reminded him in an even weaker voice, "I was supposed to meet you and Tuuri today to go to the museum."

"Fine. Just go now."

Emil didn't need to be told three times. He fled without another word.

 

 

Emil reeked of sweat and alcohol and Lalli. He couldn't go back to Anna's parents' house in such a state, and so that was how he ended up at his uncle's house at barely past 9 AM on a Sunday, looking and probably smelling like a train wreck. Siv opened the door, took one look at him, and gestured him in. "I'll make some coffee," she said, despite the cost of the beans, and he went straight to the bathroom with a bleak nod.

When the door was safely shut before him, Emil let it all register for the first time since he had woken up in confusion that morning.  _I slept with Lalli. I slept with my best friend. With another man. I slept with_  Lalli. _How could I do this to us?_  He remembered telling Lalli that his life was ruined. He remembered asking Lalli about falling in love. And then he remembered...

_Being kissed as though he was a feast, and Lalli had been starved for years. Touches that worshiped his body, teasing and soothing in turn. Nails digging into his skin as Lalli clutched at him like the last piece of floating debris amid a shipwreck. The feel of taut muscles and hard planes beneath his own greedy hands. The way Lalli had cried out in incomprehensible Finnish, shuddering as he came in Emil's fingers..._

No. That wasn't what really mattered here.  _I slept with someone else. I cheated on Anna._ That thought was like a bucket of ice water poured over the flushed memories. He had never cheated. He had never even _considered_ cheating. He hadn't thought he could be that kind of guy. He would hear all the excuses trotted out around the soup canteen among his cleansers. The tales of "Hey, _she_ came on to _me_!" and "You don't understand. She was the one who got away!" and "Things had been bad for a long time--we hadn't had sex in months." They were all just excuses, and there was no worthy excuse for betraying someone you claimed to love, without having the decency to either control yourself or simply end things first. If you really wanted something else, then why even be in a relationship? He'd thought it was that simple.

_I am an idiot. A self-righteous, hypocritical idiot. And now I'm as as bad as any of those assholes._

Emil wrenched the shower on, turning the hot water to its highest setting and ripping his clothes off to get under it. He hissed as the scalding water washed over the fresh scratches on his skin. He leaned forward, ducking his head down so the water streamed over his head, making it impossible to keep his eyes open. But then the memories of the night before shivered back to the surface of his consciousness, and Emil sat down hard on the clammy porcelain of the tub. He hung his head down and buried his hands in his hair. _What did I do? Lalli, what did I do to you? To Anna?_

He remained on the floor of the tub and let the water pound down upon him. As the stream grew lukewarm and then chillingly cold, he still didn't stand or get out of the bathtub. When he did finally push himself up, he mechanically scrubbed at his aching body under the frigid rain of water. But he couldn't wash away why he was so sore. The memories and the truth of what he had done didn't circle down the drain together with the alcohol-laden sweat and body fluids that he sloughed from his skin. The most he could do was try to scrub himself pink and raw and new. _This has to be it_ , he decided as his teeth chattered and his muscles shook. He was hungover and he was miserable and he was _done_. He couldn't sink any lower than this.

He switched off the shower. His clothes had been picked up, though he hadn't even heard Siv come into the bathroom, and a set of Torbjörn's old things had been left piled atop the toilet. He toweled off his cold body in front of the mirror, forcing himself to look at every scratch and love bite littering his pale winter skin. Then he slowly dressed himself in his uncle's clothes and slipped out of the bathroom to join Siv at the kitchen table. She slid a cup of coffee to him without a word. He took it gratefully in his hands. It had cooled while he was busy drowning himself in the shower but he didn't ask her to reheat it.

"So," Siv said slowly, swirling the black brew in her own cup. "Everything all right?"

Emil laughed shortly, because there was nothing else he could possibly do except maybe cry. He winced as his head throbbed at the sound of his own laughter in his ears. "I don't know. I'm either in the middle of ruining my life or fixing it. I'm really not sure which."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Her face remained neutral, her faded blue eyes steady and unassuming. He looked at the worn woman who he was lucky enough to be related to through his uncle and was more grateful for her than ever. She had always been there for him, from his first days living in Mora, but she had never once tried to replace his mother. She simply made sure that he knew she was there, if he ever needed her. When he'd been a teenager, he had mostly been too stubborn to turn to her, but he'd reached the point in his life when he could admit that sometimes he didn't know what to do.

He wanted to talk to someone, and he had left himself with very few choices. Tuuri was out. There were some things you just didn't do--and talking to your friend about how you had fucked your life by fucking her cousin had to be one of them. He couldn't talk to Anna--and it wasn't only because of the subject at hand. He never told Anna about anything that really bothered him. He never told anyone about anything that really bothered him, in fact. He'd only ever admitted such things to Lalli, long ago, and mostly because Lalli hadn't been able to understand what he was saying. Now Lalli could understand what he said, and talking to him was completely out of the question.

"I think I would like that," he admitted at last. But that didn't mean that he was going to have an awkward conversation about sex with his aunt. He didn't want her to know how low he'd sunk. He didn't want her to know that he was that kind of man. It hurt, having to hide and to know what it was he was hiding and to know that it was all his own fault. He put his head down on the table. "I really don't know what I'm doing with my life, Aunt Siv."

He felt her hand smoothing over his head briefly and tears prickled in his eyes.

"What do you mean? You don't like what you're doing anymore?"

Emil lifted his head. "You mean being a cleanser?" He shook his head. "I love being a cleanser. It's the only thing I know how to do right."

He could practically see Siv unpacking what he had and had not said. "So it's not your work that is the trouble. Is it...Anna?" He couldn't hide his wince and Siv lifted her cup, holding it in front of her face as she said tactfully, "I _had_ noticed that she didn't come with you on julafton."

Emil had to think before responding. He didn't want to say anything unfair. It would be easy to make it all sound like Anna's fault--but she wasn't the one who had been keeping her past a secret or finding comfort in the arms of other people. He was the one who was in the wrong--about everything.

"I've made a total mess of things the past few days," he said quietly. "It's my own fault. I'd been running away for years. But you knew that, didn't you?"

Her eyes dropped down into her coffee. "You mean what happened in Denmark? The expedition?"

He nodded. "I'd tried to just forget that it ever happened. I'd tried to forget about Sigrun and Mikkel and everything. But once I saw Tuuri and Lalli again..."

He trailed off, and neither of them said anything for some time. Emil thought about everything that had changed in the past few days. "I'm glad I remembered," he said. "But I feel like--like everything's different now. I can't go back to the way things were before. I have to figure out what I want or what I should do, but I just seem to keep making everything worse. And Anna... She already knows what she wants. Or she did. I haven't been helping with that this week."

"And Anna wants?" Siv took a sip at last from the mug she'd been holding up to her lips.

"To get married."

"But you don't?"

"No." The word came out easily, without any thought, and he quickly added, "I mean, it's not that I'm sure I _don't_ want to get married. I just mean that I'm not sure that I  _do_ want to." He thought for a moment about everything that had happened in Mora, and then admitted. "Maybe I'm pretty sure I don't want to."

"It's an intimidating step to take," Siv agreed, running a finger along the wood grain of the kitchen table where she had raised her family for the past decade and a half. "I think a lot of people aren't sure when they are ready to take that plunge. Maybe a better question to ask yourself is: do you just not want to marry Anna right now, at this point in your life, or do you not want to marry her at all?"

Assuming that he hadn't doomed his relationship with Anna, did he really just want more time? Would he be thrilled at the chance to marry Anna in another two years or three or five? He tried to imagine standing beside Anna at the end of an aisle. He pictured looking at her, gowned in white. Would he be thinking that it was the best day of his life? Would he be glad to have her as the mother of his children? Was she the person he wanted to grow old beside? _Why didn't I think about any of this before? Why did I think of marrying her as just a way to keep her happy?_

He pressed the heel of one palm into his face. "I'm the worst guy ever," he groaned. "Have I just been stringing her along for two years? What have I been doing?"

His aunt patted his other hand, the one that was still clutching his coffee mug. "I think you might be blowing things out of proportion a bit. Not every relationship is destined for marriage. Unless you've made some sort of promise already, then I'm not sure that you're to blame just because she is thinking of marriage and you're not."

It was true that he'd never even hinted at marriage and had assiduously avoided the topic or any future more distant than his next weekend off--but then again, Siv also didn't know what he'd done the night before. "No, I'm the definitely the worst guy ever," he said glumly.

"I'd say it would be worse to realize this after you'd already gone ahead and proposed. Or, God forbid, after you'd tied the knot and had yourself a few kids.  _Then_ you could blame yourself for ruining her life. But the fact that she spent two years dating you and maybe it didn't go anywhere?" Siv was nearly smiling now. "I don't think that was such a terrible ordeal for her. You may be my nephew, but I think you're a pretty good guy."

The guilt was only worse when she tried to console him. "I'm going to break her heart, though."

That did dim her smile at last. "You may," she admitted. "I'm sorry, Emil. It's always a shame when these things don't work out." She sat back in her chair, leaning against the wooden frame. "You're pretty sure that's what you want to do? End things?"

"I don't think I have any choice."

Siv frowned at those words. "We always have choices in life. If you want to try to work things out with Anna, then you should give it a serious effort. You don't want to regret later that you gave up on things too quickly."

"You're right. I know that. But I think," he paused and chewed on the inside of his lip for a few moments, "I think this is what I need to do."

Siv drained her mug and set it down. "Well, you are always welcome to stay here if you need a place to go."

"Thanks, Aunt Siv. But I think it's time to go back home."

All of Anna's things were still in his apartment, since she'd moved in early in the spring, and besides, he wasn't going to break up with her at her parents' house. It would be better to end things without an audience--and it would be better to admit what had happened with Lalli when they were six hours away in Östersund and there was no chance she might run into the Finns. Or purposefully seek them out. He would convince Anna that they should go back on the first train they could get tickets for. He would make it through one more day, and then he would tell her everything.

There was just one last thing he had to do in Mora before he could leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Urgh. One of those chapters that just did not want to come together. Awkward conversations and unresolved feelings and no easy fixes. Or maybe it's just the lack of Lalli? Yeah, that's it. I'll blame the mediocrity on the lack of Lalli in this chapter.
> 
> I had meant to post last night and didn't make it due to collapsing into sleep at 8 PM like the baller that I am. So I can't keep fiddling with this--I gave in and resolved to post it as it is. Next chapter: Emil tries to talk to Lalli.


	9. I Didn't Understand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You once talked to me about love_  
>  _and you painted pictures of_  
>  _a never-never land_  
>  _And I could've gone to that place but I didn't understand_  
>  _I didn't understand_  
>  _I didn't understand_  
>  \- I Didn't Understand, Elliot Smith

**9**

For the second day in a row, Emil knocked on the front door of the Lindström's house at nearly noon. This time he didn't bring any treats. He had thought about buying something to try to ease his way back in the door, but it felt too wrong. He would not be guy who cheated on his girlfriend and then showed up with flowers or chocolates to try to hide what he had done. So he showed up empty-handed and without any excuses.

Anna stood in the door for a long time this morning before she pulled it open wide enough for him to step through. She didn't say a thing as he shuffled into the warm house.

"Thanks," he said softly. He didn't take off his jacket. She would see that he wasn't wearing his own clothes.

Anna nodded, but remained mute. Emil asked, "How was the dinner at your aunt's?"

It was like a bizarre parody of the previous day. Then he'd come creeping back after storming out and spending the night sleeping in Lalli's bed. Now he had to come creeping back after sneaking out and spending the night fucking Lalli in that same bed. Everything had gotten so terribly broken that he didn't see any way to put the pieces back together.

"It would have been better with you," Anna said at last. The possibility that she really meant it stabbed him as though guilt was made of glass and shame were as a sharp as a knife. Did she really want him around? Would her night have really been better with him there? What was she going to do when she found out the truth? It had been easier to talk things through when it was just him and Siv, but now Anna was standing right in front of him. She was lovely and she was a good person, and he was about to destroy her world.

"I think you were right," he said abruptly. "We should go back to Östersund."

"Do I want to know where you went last night?" she asked, as though she hadn't heard the words.

Emil shrugged helplessly. He considered lying and saying that he'd stayed at his uncle's house the whole time. But he couldn't start lying now or he would never stop. "I got drunk and spent the night at Lalli's hotel again. But it was a mistake. I don't--I don't want to keep messing things up worse. I think it's time we go back home."

They were still standing in the hall. "I'm glad you think so," Anna said slowly. "Because I already changed my return ticket. I'm going back tomorrow." Her dark eyes searched his face. "I didn't change yours for you. Since I didn't know what you wanted."

"Tomorrow," Emil repeated in a hollow tone. "Good. That's great. I'll go to the station today and change my ticket as well." He could make it through one more day. Once they were back at home, and away from her parents and all the distractions, he would tell her everything. He would admit to the whole truth, and then he would start looking at the broken pieces of his life to see if there was anything to salvage out of the disaster he had created. But first he had a promise he had to keep.

"I'd actually made plans to visit the Zorn Museum with Tuuri and Lalli today," he said. "We made the plans days ago." He checked Anna's expression, hoping to get some clue as to how she was taking this, but her face remained closed off to him. He risked continuing. "I was thinking maybe I would swing by there, just to say good-bye and tell them that I'm leaving, then I could go by the station." He curled his hands into fists in his pockets. "It should only take an hour or two, max."

Anna went on looking at him without speaking. Emil squirmed under her gaze; as mad as she might be now, it was nothing compared to how mad and heartbroken she would be when she found out what had really happened.  _And now I'm trying to get away to run back to the very friend I slept with when I cheated on her. I can't even stand myself--but I can't leave without trying to fixing things with Lalli._

His vision was filled with the memory of Lalli's pained face that morning, so he didn't notice immediately that Anna was picking up her jacket and putting it on. "All right then," she said, as she wrapped a scarf around her neck. "Let's go say our good-byes."

He couldn't tell her that she couldn't come, even if he knew in his heart that things were already over. "Okay," he agreed. "Let's go say our good-byes."

 

   

They were already thirty minutes late by the time they arrived at the museum and paid the admission. Emil practically dragged Anna through the first two rooms as he hurried to see if they could find Tuuri and Lalli still there. If he didn't find them, it was quite likely he would not speak with them against before they left Sweden. And what were the chances he would ever see them again after that?

In the third room, he saw the pair of ash-blond Finns from across the room. He gave himself a moment to just watch them, before they knew he was there. Tuuri had her fingers up to her mouth as she studied the incredibly realistic portraits that still looked as full of life today as they must have two hundred years ago when they were painted. Beside her, Lalli also stared at the canvas in front of them, but the dark expression on his face suggested that he might not really be seeing the happy trio captured in the painting as they came down a country lane.

He must have heard the footsteps echoing through the empty room, because Lalli turned automatically to see who was coming up behind him. Those gray eyes met his from across the gallery, and Emil remembered those same eyes staring up at him, his hair fanned out on the sheets of a hotel bed. He swallowed hard. Lalli's face closed off, and Emil saw his eyes move over his shoulder.

Tuuri noticed them just as Anna stepped up to his side, and she waved her hands excitedly as she came over. "I thought you weren't going to make it!"

Lalli's expression stayed shuttered, but Emil saw the way his lip curled slightly. As though he were disgusted--or disappointed. Tuuri turned back to see why her cousin hadn't followed her across the room and Lalli moved at last. He turned and stalked out of the room through an open doorway.

Tuuri stared after him as he went. "Are you two fighting or something?" she asked Emil in a wondering tone. Of course she was surprised. He had been hanging all over Lalli for days now, and as far as she knew they had parted on perfectly friendly terms the previous day.

"Or something," Emil agreed. "I got really drunk last night and stayed over in Lalli's room. And...I was an ass. Let's just leave it at that."

"You were?"

Emil's laugh held no humor. "Oh yeah. I'm pretty good at it. Ask Anna--I bet she could provide plenty of examples if you don't believe me." Then he hurried after Lalli, leaving the two women without another word of explanation--as if to prove his point.

 

 

He found Lalli standing inches from another painting, his pointy nose nearly touching the canvas. When he approached, the Finn stepped several feet away from the wall. Emil wasn't sure if it was to take in the image more fully or to put distance between himself and Emil. He glanced at the painting. It  _was_ remarkable. A woman perched at the side of a lake, naked and plump, but as real as any photograph he'd ever seen. When you looked closely at the image, it just seemed to be random strokes, rough and imprecise--but from a few feet away, it resolved into dapples of sunlight and ripples on the water and the reflection of an unmistakably brilliant sky.

"All alone this time? Sure you don't need your girlfriend around to be safe around me?"

The question surprised him. Whatever he had been expecting Lalli to say, that hadn't been it. He turned and stared at the Finn. Lalli's face was hard, his arms over his chest.

" _What?_ Lalli, that's not what's going on here!" The words were hissed in a low hush as Emil tried to keep the sound from carrying back through the echoing rooms.

"Of course not." Lalli's eyes were fixed on the painting, and Emil stepped right into his line of sight to try to force the other man to look at him.

"I didn't bring her as some kind of... _protection._ I told Anna I was coming, and she wanted to come, too." He crossed his arms, clutching at his own elbows. "What was I supposed to do? Tell her that I was meeting my friends and that she wasn't welcome?"

Lalli shrugged. "If it's true." He didn't say anything more.

Emil grit his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment before he muttered, "Look, she doesn't know yet, okay? She doesn't know what--what happened. She doesn't even really understand what you are to me--"

Lalli's pale face went with white with fury. "I am not _anything_ to you."

"Yes, you are! Lalli, I know I screwed things up but just let me explain--"

"You don't need to explain a thing."

Lalli practically ran from the room, heading back the way that they had come from. Emil went after him, and they both reached Tuuri at the almost the same moment. Lalli snapped something in Finnish, gave Emil one last poisonous look, and then stormed out of the museum. Anna gaped after him, and Emil could see that her first impression of him being an ass was not being helped in the least. If only she knew who the real ass was here.

"H-he said that he was suddenly feeling too tired for the museum." Tuuri looked unhappy as her eyes met Emil's in a sidelong glance. "He said he didn't get much sleep last night."

 

 

After an hour at the museum, Emil and Anna had parted ways with Tuuri. Emil had explained that they had to go by the station before the sales office closed for the day to change his ticket. She had been dismayed when she heard that he would be going back to Östersund the next day, and she had given him a tight hug when he left and made him promise to stay in touch this time.

Changing his ticket had been as painless as any experience that requires you to take a number and wait in a room full of other miserable travelers can ever be. But once he held the ticket back to Östersund in his hand, it had felt like some weight had lifted from Emil's shoulders. The end was in sight. It was almost time for the truth to come out, and he wanted it out. Keeping it inside of him and trying to act like everything was normal with Anna was threatening to drive him back into another bottle of something unwise. It was better, knowing that it was all going to come crashing down and he wouldn't have to lie or pretend any longer. _Just one more day._

The problem, though, was the night. When it was time to go to bed at Anna's parents' home, after a small family dinner and an evening playing cards as though this were just another normal visit, he and Anna had gone upstairs. They had undressed and changed into their nightclothes with little talk. They'd climbed into the bed, and each had turned their backs to one another. Emil had held himself still in the dark for a long time, listening to Anna's controlled breathing, which told him that she wasn't sleeping either. Eventually she had fallen asleep, but he had not.

After an hour of shifting uncomfortably in the bed, he got up and pulled his trousers back on. He didn't bother putting a normal shirt back on or finding his rolled up socks in the dark. He crept down the stairs, shoved his bare feet into his boots, and zipped up his jacket over his pajama top. He slipped out the front and walked the familiar route one last time, asking himself with every step what it was he was doing. He was only going to make things worse--with Anna and with Lalli both. But he couldn't leave things the way they were. He was leaving the city tomorrow, and he couldn't leave things like this.

When he reached the hotel, the man on night duty hardly even blinked at seeing Emil let himself in the front door and make for the stairs for the third night in a row. Emil walked down the hall to the room he had fled from in a daze that morning, and he saw before he even reached it that there something hanging from the knob. It was a small sign.  _Do not disturb._

Taking his chances, Emil rapped softly on the door. There was a long pause, and then the sound of a lock being pulled back. The door pulled open and Emil had just enough time to open his mouth before Lalli slammed it back shut in his face. He closed his mouth tightly as he tried rapping on the door again. This time there was no response. He tried again, then tried a continuous quiet drumming on Lalli's door in the hopes that it would annoy the Finn so much that he would open the door just to snap at him, giving Emil the chance to at least say good-bye.

His knuckles were getting painful and his mind was wandering when the sound of lock sliding back registered in his brain--but it had come from behind him. He turned and found Tuuri staring at him from a door across the hall and two down. "Tuuri!" he said. "Hey. Do you think you can get Lalli to open the door?"

She didn't respond at first, chewing on her lip as she looked up at him. Emil wondered for a horrified moment if Lalli had told her what had happened, but she padded out into the hall in a hotel robe, her shoulder-length hair in a disarray. And there was no way she would be standing beside him and calling something out in Finnish for him if she knew what he'd done to her cousin. She seemed to be asking a question, her tone hesitant as she glanced at Emil and then sighed. Another quiet question came back through the closed door.

She answered in a firm tone and the door opened. Quicker this time, Emil shoved his foot in the gap before Lalli could slam it shut. That didn't stop Lalli, though, so when he swung the door back home as hard as he could, he instead smashed it into Emil's ankle. Emil yowled in pain.

"I can't believe you did that!" Tuuri snapped, shoving against the door to free Emil, who was thanking the gods that he hadn't tried to put his hand in to catch the door. His thick leather snow boots had taken some of the blow for him; if he'd had his fingers smashed between the door and the frame with that much force, something would have broken. As it was, he was blinking back tears. He wished he wasn't, but it hurt like hell. Lalli had to be  _furious_  at him _._

Tuuri pushed him into the room and down onto the edge of the bed. "Look at that! You made him cry, Lalli!"

And now his humiliation was complete. Lalli looked quietly satisfied to hear about this result, Emil's face was red with pain and shame, and they both knew that Lalli was not the real villain in this scenario.

"What are you two even fighting about? This is insane!" She was shaking her head. Lalli leaned against the wall on the far side of the room, and his eyes dared Emil to answer as he sat on the bed where they'd had sex less twenty-four hours before. The sheets were still a rumpled mess, as they had been when Emil had walked out of the room that morning. He couldn't let Tuuri sit down on the bed beside him.

"Sorry, Tuuri, but I think it's something we need to talk out just the two of us."

Her round face filled with surprise, then suspicion. "Can I trust that both of you will still be alive tomorrow if I leave you alone together right now?" She gave her cousin a pointed look. "We'll never be allowed back in the country if you murder him, Lalli. Plus it's just not something friends do to one another."

"No," Lalli agreed. "It's not something friends do to one another." The stress he put on the words, his eyes still never leaving Emil, made it clear that he wasn't only talking about murder.

"It'll be fine." Emil waved her away. "Lalli isn't going to murder me."

The glare that was directed his way from across the room seemed to suggest  _Don't be so sure about that._ Lalli's mood had only grown worse during the course of the day--or maybe it was Emil showing up once again at his hotel room at night that had made him so angry. It hadn't ended very well for him the last time.

"Fine. You're grown men. Start acting like it."

And then Tuuri slammed out of the room in a huff, and they were left alone.

"Why are you here?"

Emil wished he wasn't sitting on the bed, but his ankle throbbed and he wasn't sure he would be able to stand on it. The only chair in the room was on Lalli's side of the room and moving there seemed even more impossible than standing, both because of his leg and because of the expression on Lalli's face. "I couldn't just leave things the way they were. I couldn't sleep thinking about it."

"Things are fine the way they are."

"How are they fine?" Emil burst out. "You're fine with not talking? With not being friends any longer? Or you're fine with the fact that we fucked? Or you're fine with just pretending that it never happened?"

Lalli shifted, leaning the back of his head against the wall to look down at Emil through lidded eyes. "I'm fine."

"With what?!"

Painfully long seconds of silence ticked by. Emil was practically squirming by the time that Lalli asked in a hard voice, "What are you doing here, Emil? What were you expecting to happen?"

"I just wanted things to go back to the way they were." That was perhaps the most honest thing Emil had said all day.

"And that's why you came to my hotel room alone at nearly midnight. To make things go back to the way they were. The way things were when?" Lalli pushed off the wall and strode across the room, stopping in front of Emil and looking down at him from his full height. His feet were between Emil's sprawled legs and Emil had to lean back, craning his neck to see Lalli's face and put a bit more distance between their bodies. "The way they were last night?"

Emil protested weakly, but his heart was racing. He wasn't nervous that Lalli might initiate something again. He was  _excited_  by the possibility. But that wasn't why he had come, was it? He didn't want to cheat. He didn't want to leave Anna sleeping and unaware while he lost himself in somebody else. He didn't want to have another sin he would have to admit to when they were back in Östersund. He didn't want to betray her again without even the excuse of alcohol this time.

Then Emil noticed that in the long list of things that he  _didn't_ want to do, being together with Lalli never made an appearance. Sleeping with Lalli had been wrong because he had a girlfriend and Lalli had a boyfriend, and because it seemed like he had taken advantage of Lalli when they were both drunk. But if he didn't have a girlfriend? If Lalli didn't have a boyfriend? If they were two consenting adults without any other ties?

The realization would have knocked him onto his ass if he hadn't already been sitting on it. He _wanted_ Lalli. He had been so focused on the fact that he had cheated on his girlfriend and betrayed Lalli's friendship that he hadn't noticed the obvious fact that he  _wanted_ to be together with Lalli. It wasn't just stress or grief or some drunken mistake. He wanted to wrestle the other man onto the bed and this time experience every moment without the haze of alcohol. He wanted to be able to remember every touch and every cry and feeling. He wanted to wake up beside Lalli the way he had Saturday morning, when the sight of the mage beside him had made him feel safe and  _home._ He didn't want to go back to Östersund the next day and never again have Lalli right here within his arms' reach.

"Maybe," he admitted, searching Lalli's eyes. Something flared in them, and it might have been anger. It certainly seemed like anger when Lalli shoved him back onto the bed with his teeth bared. The mattress bounced beneath their combined weight as Lalli climbed on top of him, seizing his wrists and pinning them against the sheets. "But I can't."

Lalli froze. He slowly released his hold on Emil's arms and leaned back. Emil had to fight the urge to grab the thin Finn by the waist and hold him in place. Lalli had always captivated him, but looking up at him in the low electric light of the hotel lamp, Emil saw that it was more than that. Lalli was beautiful. Light pooled over the planes of his sharp cheekbones and made his long hair shine like white gold. Only the top half was pulled back in a messy knot tonight, and loose strands fell into his clear grey eyes. And those eyes were as remote as they had ever been, as though Lalli had retreated somewhere a thousand kilometers away from this hotel bed.

"I'm so sorry," Emil whispered. He sat up and Lalli slid away, going straight to the door. The other man twisted the knob and held the door open without a word. Emil didn't know what else he could do, so he stood up and limped through it. He turned around in the hall and looked back in at Lalli. He couldn't say anything now. He had nothing to offer, no promises he could make--even if Lalli would accept them. Maybe Lalli was willing to mess around with him, but that didn't mean that he wanted anything more than that. He had a boyfriend, didn't he?

"I've ruined everything, haven't I?" He had no sheepish smile at the ready this time. He looked bleakly at Lalli as the Finn paused in the action of swinging the door shut.

"I think it was time it was ruined."

And he closed the door in Emil's face. Emil slumped back into the wall behind him, and there was soft but final click as the lock shot home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! We're happy, right?


	10. Oh Well, Okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If you get a feeling next time you see me_  
>  _Do me a favor and let me know_  
>  _'Cos it's hard to tell_  
>  _It's hard to say_  
>  _Oh well, okay_  
>  _Oh well, okay_  
>  _Oh well, okay_  
>  \- Oh Well, Okay; Elliott Smith

**10**  

 

Emil didn't look up from his book when he wished Anna a good night. He heard her footsteps stop as she paused at the door to the bedroom, probably looking back at him. But he kept his eyes moving along the lines of text, as though he was actually seeing any of what the page said. The truth was that he was so tired that his eyes were nearly crossing, though. He wasn't sure that he'd gotten even a few hours of sleep the night before.

When he'd finally limped back into the Lindström's house after a long and painful walk home, he had eased himself back into Anna's bed for several hours of misery. His nightmares had been a chaotic mashup of Denmark and the recent past. He had seen Sigrun teasing him about being a coward as she died before his eyes. The terrible days in the tank, only now it was Anna sleeping in Sigrun's bunk with her back turned to him. And the worst, and the one which had made him give up on sleep altogether, when it had been Lalli dying against a leafless tree as Emil had driven away without looking back.

He heard the rustle and faint creak that told him Anna was climbing into the bed they had shared for the past eight months, ever since she had moved into the apartment he kept in Östersund. They had arrived back a couple of hours earlier, having taken the train up from Mora just after lunch. Moving cautiously around one another, they had both undone their bags and unpacked their things, placing the clothes freshly laundered by Anna's mother back into their respective drawers. Emil had wondered what the point was when they would probably be packed back up again in mere hours.

He knew he had to tell her everything. Even if the marks on his body would fade after a few more days, the fact that he had cheated wouldn't disappear. He would admit to everything--but not at the end of a long day of travel. It should wait for the next morning. They were both tired tonight. They would say more than they should. They would hurt each other more than they needed. And how would it end? With Anna heading out of the apartment at this hour of night because she couldn't stand staying here with him after she knew the truth? He could make it till morning.

Emil stood from the armchair and wandered over to the bookshelf, replacing the book that he hadn't really been reading anyway. His fingers slid across the spines of the books. They were his mother's books. He had taken them out of storage when he had gotten this apartment, a little reminder of the days when his life had been easy and full of such luxuries. She had been an academic by training, working as an accountant at his father's company. Tuuri used to reminded him of her: his mother had had the same delight in learning as Tuuri seemed to, and she'd tried her hardest to pass it on to him. And maybe some of it had stuck. While he had hated studying and memorizing things for tests in public school, he did like reading. And he liked learning about things he was interested in. It was just that the things he was interested made a rather short list which did not match up very well with the Swedish national curriculum. But in the past few years, he had begun to welcome the distraction to be found tucked between the paper leaves.

He was only a third of the way through the many shelves, but he turned to them whenever he couldn't sleep and needed to escape from his own thoughts. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against the cloth-bound books.  _Is there an answer here? If I just read enough of these books, would I know how to fix everything? If I'd been better at learning, would I have been smart enough to keep from hurting Lalli and Anna so badly?_

It was 9 PM on Monday night. It hadn't even been 24 hours since he'd last seen Lalli--closing a hotel door in his face--and he already missed his friend with an ache that felt like he'd lost half his body. How had he lived three and a half years without Lalli and been fine? It seemed impossibly lonely now. He didn't have anyone else in his life that he could go to, any time of the night or day, and depend on to listen to his most inane thoughts or his lonely worries. And now he didn't even have Lalli. Now that he'd realized that Lalli might have been what he wanted all along, he didn't have Lalli.

 

 

Anna woke him the next morning when she came out of the bedroom. Emil sat up on the sofa, yawning and scrubbing at his face, and watched her walk into the small kitchenette to put on a pot of coffee. It was one of those small perks that he could afford on his captain's salary, and he was especially glad of it this morning. He needed coffee to face the conversation he knew he was about to have.

Ducking down, he picked up the book that had fallen to the ground when he must have drifted off to sleep sometime after midnight. He closed it and set it on the coffee table, staring at the cover.  _Den allvarsamma leken._ The title emblazoned on spine stared back at him as he listened to the sound of Anna boiling water to pour over the freshly ground coffee beans. The beans were imported from Hveragerði in Iceland and roasted here in Sweden, then sold at ridiculous prices to people like Emil and Anna who had enough money to waste on such luxuries.

When she brought him a steaming mug, Emil took it and immediately took a deep drag of the hot brew. After it burned its way down to his stomach, his breath whooshed out of him in a heavy sigh. His nightmares hadn't been any better back in Östersund than they had been in Mora.

"Fell asleep reading again?" Anna asked. She sounded carefully neutral, like a stranger making small talk with someone they had just found themselves stuck in a room with.

Emil nodded. It was hardly the first time it had happened. Even before Anna had moved in, she had spent plenty of nights over with Emil and knew that there were times when he simply could not sleep. Finding him face down on the sofa after spending a night alone in the cold sheets of his large bed was something she'd experienced at least a couple times each month. "One of those nights," he agreed. He took another sip.

"It was a tough week for you." Anna sat on the edge of the coffee table in front of him, reaching out to place one hand against his hands where they were wrapped around the hot ceramic of the mug. "But things will settle down soon. You'll see." Her fingers stroked his. "Everything will go back to normal."

"I'm not so sure about that." The words slipped out before he thought them through. He had simply spoken his thoughts, honestly, as he would have with Lalli.  _Don't think about him. This isn't about him._ He made himself look Anna in the eyes. She deserved that much. She deserved more than what he'd done. "Anna, I don't think this is working." 

Anna drew her hand back and pressed her fingers into her eyes, her shoulders slumping. "Emil, please. We just got home last night, we have nothing to eat in the apartment--can we just not do this right now? I know the holidays were stressful, but give us a few days. We go back to work on Wednesday. We only have this one day, and we need to go get groceries and--"

"Anna, are you even listening to me?" He leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees. "This is just like when we were in Mora. I tried telling you about Denmark and what was going on in my head, and you acted like it was nothing." 

She slid off the table, kneeling on the ground in front of him and running her hands along his thighs. "It's not that I think it's nothing, Emil. I know that you've gone through terrible things. But I think they seem bigger to you than they really are."  She was looking at him seriously, her eyes searching his face. "I know it was bad for you. But you live a good life now, and you're happy 99% of the time. You can't tell me that those experiences are the bulk of you. They're such a tiny piece of your life. They don't make you who you are. Don't let them control you."

"But I'm not." Emil pulled his hands away and stood, stepping away and pacing to the window. He couldn't sit still. "I'm not happy, Anna. I've spent three and a half years desperately trying to build up a life that I thought could make me happy, and make me forget. Every day, I tried not to remember what happened--and it didn't make me happy. It didn't work, and I'm tired of it. I don't want to live like that anymore."

Her face closed off as she climbed up from her kneeling position on the floor. He supposed he deserved her anger--he had just insulted the entire life he had built with her over the past two years. "Emil, you need to give things some time."

"I cheated on you."

Anna jerked back as if he had physically slapped her. " _When?"_

He didn't look away from her. He had to face what he had done. "After we fought about Denmark. The night of your aunt's dinner."

"You told me you stayed with your friend. Lalli."

"I did. Lalli is the one I slept with."

Her mouth hung open. It would have been comical if it weren't all so awful. When she finally spoke, her voice was hardly more than a whisper. "Lalli? The Finnish man--that Lalli?" Emil nodded. "What does that even mean? When you say that you slept with him..."

"I mean that I slept with him. We had sex."

She dropped heavily onto the sofa where Emil had spent the night, her back to him as she stared through the far doorway into the empty bedroom. "You had sex with him. With that man. You mean you're _gay_?"

It was Emil's turn to be left without a way to respond. It was  _Lalli_ , that was all. Emil had been surrounded by other men most of his life, first in the dorms at public school and then living in the barracks with his fellow cleansers, and he had never been the least bit attracted to any of them. And he hadn't been attracted to Lalli before he'd been drunk out of his mind and desperate for distraction.

_No, that's not true._  He had always been attracted to Lalli. From the first days of the expedition, he had gravitated to the scout. He had wanted to be near Lalli, always watching his expression to see how he would react to things and finding excuses to remain beside him. He had worried more about Lalli when he was away from the tank than any of the others, and not because he thought Lalli was any less capable of taking care of himself--only because the thought of something happening to Lalli had been intolerable. It may not have been sexual then, but it would be a lie to claim even to himself that he hadn't been attracted to Lalli before Saturday night. 

"I don't know, Anna." He shoved his hands deep in his pockets, his shoulders hunching up defensively. "I don't know what it means. I was drunk and angry and everything was coming apart..."

"So...wait. The next day, when we met those two, and you went running off after him..." Anna twisted about on the sofa so that she was facing him. "That was--what? A lover's quarrel?"

" _No_." Emil struggled to explain why he'd run after Lalli. There hadn't been any choice; Lalli had been hurt and upset, and so Emil had gone after him. He could have no more ignored Lalli's distress in that moment than he could turn off gravity and fly. "No. It was--I had taken advantage of him. I was trying to make things right. I had betrayed his friendship. I betrayed your trust. I don't deserve to be with anyone right now."

"Don't say that, Emil," she said miserably. "It's not like you're the first person to have ever made a mistake."

"You're right. I shouldn't have said it like that." He took a deep breath. He'd already said the ugly words and admitted what had happened with Lalli. That should have been the hardest part. But these words weren't coming any easier. "Anna, the truth is that I don't think I _should_ be with anyone right now. I need to figure out myself first. I need to deal with my past, and figure out what it is I want."

"But you're that sure what you want isn't me?" She tried to give him a brash smile, like the ones he had been so charmed by in the early days. "Because I'm a pretty good catch, and I'm not going to just wait around for years for you to get your head on straight."

"I'm pretty sure."

That was when she began to cry.

"I'm so sorry," Emil whispered. He didn't go to her or try to touch her. "I didn't ever think things were going to turn out like this." He hadn't thought he could feel more guilty than he had the morning after he'd slept with Lalli, when he had realized what it was he had done to them all, but he had been wrong. Standing by and watching Anna cry into her hands was even worse. He had loved her, in his way. It just wasn't the kind of love that you married someone for, and he had figured it out far too late. "I'm so sorry," he said again. "Do you want me to leave? I can stay at the office for a few days until you...can get your things together."

He was kicking her out of her home. He was basically telling her to get her things and go. It sounded so terrible that he half-wished he could have just kept pretending and lying to avoid having to do this to her. He thought that disappearing for a while so that she could gather her things was the kindest thing he could do now, but the look of disbelief that she gave him made him less sure. Should he stay and help her pack? Was that what people normally did? He'd never lived with anyone else before Anna.

"Fine. Go." She glared at him for a moment, then her face crumpled back into tears as she said bitterly, "I'll make sure to be gone by the time you come back."

"That's not what I..." He trailed off. What could he say?  _That's not what I meant? You don't have to leave?_ Of course she had to leave. _I hope we can still be friends?_ Even he wasn't stupid enough to try that line, not now. Since he didn't know what to do, he simply asked, "Is there anything I can do? To help you or...or make this better?"

"Just go."

It was practically the same thing Lalli had told him Sunday morning. Emil had successfully ruined everything. He walked to the door and lifted his jacket from the hook hanging on the wall. Slipping his arms into it, he shoved his feet into his loose boots without bothering with the laces. His keys were still in his jacket pocket, along with his wallet. He could live without anything else for a day or two. "You're sure?" he asked one last time, hesitating before opening the door.

"Yeah, I'm 'pretty sure,'" she said, throwing his words back at him in a voice thick with tears. She didn't look up at him again. Her head was in her hands and her dark blond hair fell around her face so that he couldn't even see it. Was this the last he would ever see of her? He hadn't meant for it to end like this, but how else could things have ever ended if she wanted to get married and he didn't? Why hadn't he realized sooner that this was coming?

He stepped out into the hall, pulling the door shut behind him before starting down the old spiral staircase. When he reached the ground floor, he stepped out onto the street and turned automatically onto Regemensgatan. His feet took him north toward the corps' head office without him needing to think, which was good. If he passed anyone he knew on the streets, he didn't notice. Instead he walked the entire route to the office in a daze. Emil let himself in with the key he had been given when he became a captain, and stumbled down the empty halls, his hand dragging along the wall as he went. No one would come back from the holidays for days yet. He could sleep on the sofa in the captain's room without anyone ever realizing it.

He looked down the long, dark hallway, full of doors dimly outlined by the weak light that peeked through the crack beneath each. They were all closed. He was alone, just as he'd wanted to be. He had ended things with Anna, ruined things with Lalli, and the only thing he had left to him now were the ghosts of the past. Emil slumped down to the wooden floor of the hall, wrapping his arms over his head as he tried not to hyperventilate.


	11. A Fond Farewell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _This is not my life_  
>  _It's just a fond farewell to a friend_  
>  _It's not what I'm like_  
>  _It's just a fond farewell to a friend_  
>  _Who couldn't get things right_  
>  _Fond farewell to a friend_  
>  \- A Fond Farewell, Elliott Smith

**11**

 

On Wednesday morning, Emil was already sitting at his desk when the first of his fellow captains arrived. He leaned back in his chair and exchanged meaningless greetings, giving no hint that he had woken up in the very same office that morning. Sleep had been even more elusive than ever, perched on a squashy sofa without any blankets in a cold office. Some time around dawn, he had given up on it and gone out to find the first shop open that would sell him the strongest coffee his money could buy. His wallet was nearly empty after Mora and three cups of coffee that morning, but he could always visit the bank later.

He had showered in one of the barracks that he knew would be empty. The enlisted cleansers were all off duty for the winter; it was only officers and above who still reported in through even these coldest months, to settle their plans for the next season. Everyone else wouldn't return until February, when they would need to start sweeping the lands they'd cleansed the previous year with the cats. Having a third of the year off each year was one of the reasons that many cleansers signed up--and that they got the caliber of recruits that they usually did.

Emil forced himself to smile and chat with Oscar as they settled back in after a week away for jul. Over the next twenty minutes, the other captains slowly trickled in, and they got down to work as they all swapped stories about holiday visits and drunken family dinners and awkward gifts. Emil let the others dominate the conversation. It wasn't that unusual for him; the others knew him as a nice enough guy, but not exactly friendly. He didn't hang out after work or talk about his personal life. If any of them thought that he seemed quieter than usual, none of them found it worth commenting on.

The day dragged on, but less slowly than Tuesday had, when he had been entirely alone in the office with nothing to distract him from imagining what Anna might be doing at that moment--or Lalli. Among the crowd, he could force himself to tune into the conversations going on around him, letting them fill his ears. Every time his mind tried to wander, Emil made himself focus only on what the other captains were talking about. And that was how he made it through the day.

As everyone began packing up their things come evening, Emil considered acting as though he still had something to finish up. He could wait until everyone else left and stay another night on the uncomfortable couch. But eventually he would have to go back home and see what he would find there. So he pulled on his jacket when everyone else did, and trooped out of the office and back out onto street. A small crowd of captains headed out onto Infanterigatan, splitting into two groups as the majority turned left to make there way to the center of town to get a drink. Emil carried on down the road as it turned into Regemensgatan. Once his building came into sight, he looked up to the third floor. His windows were dark.

When he opened the door to his apartment, there was no one there to greet him. Flipping up the switch on the wall, the electric ceiling fixture bloomed with light and the empty room was illuminated. It looked almost the same as it had when he had left it the morning before. Anna hadn't been mad enough to do anything malicious. The kettle she had bought that summer, though, was gone from the stove. A potted orchid that she had watered and cared for was gone from the window. And in the middle of the coffee table, without any note or explanation needed, was a pair of lone keys.

Emil sunk down onto the couch where he had spent his last night sharing this apartment with Anna. He pressed the knuckles of one hand against his mouth. Where was she now? Probably staying with Sigrid. She was Anna's best friend in Östersund and would have taken her in without question. Would she still be crying, even now? He hoped she had moved on to hating him. It only seemed fair that they should all hate him equally: Anna, Lalli, and Emil himself. 

He bit down on the knuckle resting against his lips. He needed to sleep. He hadn't really slept in days, but he was afraid. The nightmares waited for him in sleep, in the large empty bed that was all he had left now. But he wasn't going to be able to keep going on a few hours of fractured sleep a night. Shoving himself up from the sofa, he hurried to the kitchen and took down a bottle of liquor that had been gathering dust for months. He stared at the label for a few moments, wondering if it would be enough to keep the memories away for at least eight hours. If it wasn't, he would have to find something else that could.

 

 

Everyone left early on Friday afternoon. It was New Year's Eve, and no one wanted to stay at work when there were parties and fancy dinners waiting for them. Even their bosses were sneaking out early, and Emil had no reason to stay at work--except that he didn't look forward to going back home to spend the night alone. He had spent the past two Eves with Anna and her friends at one of the restaurants that they frequented in town. He had little doubt they would all be there again tonight, with Anna being comforted by all of her friends, who would tell her that they'd never really liked Emil anyway.

Emil's lips twisted into a rueful grimace. It was what he deserved. He didn't actually want to be with them either, but left to himself, he kept remembering the first morning he had spent with Tuuri and Lalli, taking fika in a crowded café in Mora and talking about how they should celebrate the New Year in Sweden. Tonight would be their last night in Sweden. The next day was January 1, and they would be getting on the ferry to return to Finland. The tenuous connection that they still had--the fact that they were still now in the same country, mere hours away from one another--would snap like a thread, and his last real friends would disappear beyond his reach.

January 1. The date reminded him of something, and as he straightened up the papers on his desk, he tried to remember what it was. There was something else significant about January 1, something he was forgetting--and then it struck him.  _Of course. How could I have forgotten?_

Emil dropped the pile of papers in his hands, letting them fall and scatter. A few slid off the desk as he turned to check the clock on the wall. It was 4:17. The last train of the day left at 4:30. Emil grabbed his jacket up from the back of his chair, and ran for the door, ignoring the questions being shouted after him from the few other stragglers still in the office. There was no time for answers. There was no time to waste breath on anything but running. He flew out the front doors, his hands slamming into the glass to push them open before him, and he stumbled out onto the street.

Snow had been falling again that day, and he had to run through the drifts. The clumps grabbed at his feet, and he skidded and slipped, but it was at least slightly better than old ice would have been. Dashing down Fältjägargränd, he passed couples already beginning to wander toward the center of town. Prästgatan would already be bustling with festive merrymakers, and he couldn't get stuck in the crowd if he wanted any hope of making it to the station in time. He wheeled onto Kyrkgatan instead, praying that it would be less busy.

His feet slid out from under him, and Emil crashed to the ground, rolling through the snow. He hadn't stopped to put his jacket on and it flew out of his hands. Pushing himself up painfully, he didn't even bother trying to brush off the heavy snow cloaking his sweater and pants. He did stop to pick up his jacket--he wasn't stupid enough to leave behind his jacket in the dead of a Swedish winter--and then he stumbled onward, running with a limp from the pain in his knee.

Cutting through the park, Emil arrived at the train station a red-faced mess, dripping with melted snow, and gasped a single word at the ticket window: "Mora!"

The man working at the window glanced over his shoulder at the clock on the wall, and Emil ripped out his wallet, throwing a pile of banknotes through the small hole under the window. "I don't care if I might miss it. Just give me the ticket, and I'll run! Please!"

The ticket seller grabbed a ticket and shoved it back through the hole with one hand as his other hand raked the cash toward him. "Run then," he barked, as he began to count through the money. It was far more than was needed, and he was probably congratulating himself on the nice New Year's bonus that had just fallen into his lap. Emil didn't care. He snatched up the ticket and took off. He could see the train through the other end of the station, and there was a conductor standing in one of the open doors, signalling the all clear to the driver.

"I'm getting on!" Emil shouted, running for the train with his jacket flapping from one hand and his ticket held out in front of him like some magic charm. He saw the woman pause, and it gave him long enough to put on one last spurt of speed and reach the train before she could finish pulling the door shut. He leaped on board, half falling into her as he landed in the narrow space luggage area at the end of the train car. "Thank you," he gasped, as she pulled the door shut and latched it firmly.

"You do have a ticket?" she asked suspiciously, and he handed her the piece of paper that he hadn't even looked at himself. Luckily for him, it seemed to be in order, and she waved him into the passenger car. Emil finally tried to brush off the worst of the snow, then he let himself into the car to find a seat.

There were quite a few excited groups heading down to the city for a long night of partying. Emil ignored them and found a spot among a few empty rows where he wouldn't be disturbed. He hung his jacket from the hook on the wall, and sank down onto the seat. As his breath slowly evened out, he opened his wallet to see what damage he had done. He hadn't even counted out how much money he had shoved at the station employee, he'd just made sure that it was more than enough for a ticket.

Emil winced as he counted the remaining bills. He still had enough to get home, but he would need to be careful. The bank wouldn't be open on New Year's day and the day after was Sunday. If he splurged too much on food, he might end up stranded. Sinking back and looking out the window at the dark landscape that was already sliding by the window, he tried not to think about whether going back was yet another mistake. Once he'd remembered what day January 1 was, he couldn't imagine not going. That was all there was to it.

 

 

He arrived at Mora at half-past ten, and went directly to the hotel on Strandgatan. The usual man was not on duty this holiday night, so Emil had to explain to someone new that he was friends with the Hotaikainens who had been staying at the hotel for the past week and ask whether they'd gone out for the evening.

"Those two from Finland, right?" the new guy asked, looking down at the book on the desk in front of him. "Yeah, they were staying here till today. But they checked out already."

"They...checked out?" Emil repeated in disbelief.

"Yeah, the chatty one said something about not wanting to risk missing their ferry. I remember 'cause she was trying to ask if she could get a refund for the night they weren't going to use. I had to tell her that we couldn't give her a refund, so it'd be better to just stay the night, but I couldn't convince her." He grinned. "I was able to rent out their rooms, though. Thank god for all the folks partying hard for New Year's Eve, am I right?"

Emil sagged limply against the desk. They were  _gone_ _?_ Not just out on the town somewhere for the night, but  _gone_ from Mora?

"They took the afternoon train to Björköfjärden?"

The man shrugged. "I guess so? Not really any of my business, is it?"

Emil stared unseeing at the wooden desk. He had managed to make the train and reach Mora in time, and still he was too late. His head jerked up and he asked, "Is there a night train to Björköfjärden?"

"Uhhh, I think there's one sometime early in the morning," the man muttered, pulling out a drawer and shuffling through some papers until he found a train schedule. He unfolded the paper and began running a finger down the small rows of numbers. "To Björköfjärden? For today it looks like...the last train left around 7 PM." He referred to the key of symbols that identified holidays schedules and other special notes. "The first train tomorrow should be leaving at, um, 5:05 in the morning."

The fellow looked up at Emil with his eyebrows arched doubtfully. Emil sighed and mentally reviewed the content of his wallet. Could he make it to Björköfjärden and back? It should just be possible, but then he'd be out of money and stuck in Mora. He would have to go to his uncle's house and ask to borrow enough for the train ride back up to Östersund to get back for work on Monday. And to beg for some food, because his current funds wouldn't allow him to buy anything and he hadn't eaten since he'd had his lunch at work that afternoon.

"If you're stuck here for the night, I could give you a room--we've got a special on for the holiday, you know?" The night man gave a hopeful smile, and Emil glared at him.

"No, thank you. I have a place I can go." He shoved his hands back into the jackets of his pockets as he turned and walked out of the hotel lobby.

 

  

 

As soon as the train doors opened in Björköfjärden, Emil was the first out the door. The huge cruise ship that sailed across the Baltic Sea to Finland was still in the port, huge and looming in the misty morning light. It could be seen from anywhere in the small village, including from the train itself.

There should still be enough time. The morning train was meant for travelers taking the ferry; there should still be twenty minutes before the ship departed. But the ship had arrived from Finland hours before, and it was possible that Lalli and Tuuri could have already gotten on board to stake out their spots. If they had, Emil would be out of luck. He had asked Torbjörn for enough to cover the train back to Östersund, but no more. He knew that his uncle's family was hard pressed for money; he hadn't been able to ask them for anything other than that. So buying a ticket onto the ferry just to say a few words was out of the question. He might have come all this way for nothing.

Emil jogged to the ferry terminal and didn't bother waiting for the elevator. He ran up the many stairs until he reached the lobby where travelers passed on and off of the huge ship. As he strode toward the turnstiles, he scanned the rows of seats to his left and right. There were plenty of ash-blond heads that caught his eye, but none belonged to Tuuri or Lalli. His feet moved faster the farther he made it across the large hall without seeing them. By the time he reached the gates where incoming visitors passed through immigration, he was practically running.

He hung over the turnstile and leaned as far out as he could and looked down the long, glass-walled gangway that led to the ship. Then he saw them. The pair were as unmistakable as they had been on the streets of Mora a week ago. They were nearly to the entrance of the ship. Emil shouted out as loud as he dared: " _Lalli!_ "

The mage jerked to a stop. A moment passed, then another, and then finally Lalli turned to look back at Emil. His expression matched the stormy clouds that could be seen through the glass walls, and the look he gave Emil was as wary as that of any wild animal that had just been stumbled upon in the safety of the woods by some predator. Emil found himself without words. He could apologize again, but he couldn't explain anything when they had a ship to be on in just minutes, or when Tuuri was standing there gaping at his sudden appearance. He didn't even know what he could explain. He still hadn't figured out what going on in his own head and heart, let alone what went on in Lalli's. So he settled for saying the one thing he had come here to say.

"Happy birthday!"

The mage's gray eyes widened in surprise, his lips parting as his mouth fell upon. It was as though he himself had forgotten that today was his birthday--or had so completely expected Emil not to remember the fact that it had left him completely dumbfounded.

Lalli closed his mouth. He spun on his heel and continued walking down the gangplank, and Emil felt as though he'd swallowed broken glass. It was cutting its way down his middle and tearing apart his insides. He began to turn away, unable to watch Lalli disappear onto the ship. A flash of movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention as he turned, though, and he looked back just in time to see Lalli raise one hand in a brief and silent farewell--just as he had done dozens of times before. Then the narrow hand came back down, tucking back into the safety of Lalli's fur-lined jacket pocket, and Lalli walked out of Emil's life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaand that's the end of Part 1! I'm afraid we aren't going to see what exactly happens to Emil in Östersund, because now we are going to follow Lalli for a time. From now on you're just going to have to guess what is going on in Emil's head--like poor Lalli will have to do. I wonder if either Lalli or we will figure it out correctly?


	12. Waltz #2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I'm never gonna know you now, but I'm gonna love you anyhow_  
>  _I'm never gonna know you now, but I'm gonna love you anyhow_  
>  \- Waltz #2 (XO), Elliot Smith

**PART TWO**

12

Lalli glared at the crowd forming messily before him on the shore of the glittering lake. He stood among the small Finnish contingent, with his arms crossed over his light tunic. It was getting too hot for a jacket, though it was still early spring. It was going to be a hot year, which would mean a busy year for anyone--like himself--tasked with venturing into the wild to combat the violent world always trying to swallow up the last pockets of humanity.

The Swedes milled about, chattering as they stared around the small harbor in the incandescent morning light. They'd just arrived from Pori, and this was the first good look that most of them were getting at Finland's "capital." There were nearly a hundred cleansers who had come to help with the expansion. They were going to try to clear a corridor from the town of Eno to the hydroelectric plant in Pamilo, and Lalli was one of the four mages assigned to the project.

A large part of him had wanted to refuse the assignment, even if it would have meant disciplinary action. But there were only a dozen people in Keuruu who could manage the simplest conversation in Swedish. Almost no one in Finland bothered learning any Swedish--if you were hoping to be an academic or work internationally, Icelandic was the language used around the world. Icelandic was even enough to get around in Sweden, since every hotel and most shops had someone who could at least answer basic questions in the language. Lalli would have never bothered learning a word Swedish if he hadn't had a purely personal motivation. _What a waste of four years._

So while he had wanted to refuse, Lalli had known from the instant he was asked that he would accept. He couldn't refuse to help. He had grown up in Saimaa, and he knew as well as anyone how hard life was among the lakes and islands.

At least Tuuri would be along as well. She had already been in Eno for nearly a month, and she was thrilled with the excuse to get out of Keuruu for the better part of a year. She still got upset every time she ran into her ex--or his new girlfriend--in the skald's office. Once she had told the project organizers that Lalli could speak Swedish as well, the head cleanser had demanded that he be one of the mages that join the crews for the cleansing.

The ship from Pori hadn't finished unloading all of its cargo, but there would be no rest for the Swedes. The town of Saimaa didn't have the capacity to absorb the 88 cleansers overnight in addition to the civilian visitors who had also come in on the same ship. The 120 military staff out of Keuruu had already moved up to Eno, but even they had needed to travel in waves. One half had arrived two weeks ago to work on constructing the first campsite, building a temporary fence around it, digging latrines, and setting up tents. The remaining half had arrived last week, and Lalli had been among them. But he and any other field members who knew even a bit of Swedish had come back down the lake to help with the transfer. There were only seven of them in total.

The head cleanser looked at him, scratching his chin. Lalli sighed. The man spoke a smattering of Swedish, thanks to collaborations like this in the past. But survival phrases like "Go that way" and "Stop" and "Big troll" weren't going to help much with herding the yawning Swedes onto the waiting boats. He allowed himself a moment to resent Tuuri for insisting that her work in Eno was more important than wasting two days to sail down here and then back again. He still disliked talking to strangers, and especially to crowds, even if he had grown accustomed to it after two years of working as a field mage. He used to be able to go days or weeks without talking to anyone else as a scout, but guiding large groups of hunters and cleansers had required him to learn to communicate--even if it was mostly basic messages like "Don't go that way unless you want to die."

Raising his voice, Lalli called out to the ragged group, "Who is in charge?"

"I'm afraid that's me." The voice cut right through Lalli's breast.  _No_. He had prepared himself for the torture of being awash in Swedish for months, every word reminding him of Emil and that awful winter meeting. He hadn't ever considered that he would have to deal with the real Emil. Only the desperate took part in these international projects. The bonus pay for spending half a year away from home was tempting for those with no better options. But Emil...  _Why would he come here? There must have been some way he could get out of it._

It had been three months. Three months since he had stood face-to-face with Emil and said good-bye once and for all to foolish fantasies. They should never had met again. The gods had shown him in December that Emil would never be a part of his life, and Lalli had carved every last trace of his former friend and one-time lover out of himself with a scalpel-like precision.

Emil pushed through the crowd, clapping a few of the younger cleansers on the back as he passed. His eyes met Lalli's from across the distance still between them, and Lalli could see the nervousness in his smile from where he stood. Lalli held his own face perfectly still, but every word of Swedish he had ever learned had flown from his mind. Emil was here in Finland. In  _Saimaa_. This was the land of Lalli's childhood, the place he still retreated to in his dreams, and Emil was walking beside the vast lake toward him as if he could _ever_ be a part of this place. Lalli had to twist the fingers tucked under his elbow into his own side, pinching himself viciously.

The pain was enough to bring Lalli back to himself. He took his confusion and crushed it into a small ball, dropping it deep within himself where it could sink down and disappear like a stone tumbling to the bottom of a lake. It was a lesson Onni had taught him as a boy, and Lalli had grown very, very good at it. Better than Onni had ever intended him to be. When he had realized as a child how sad that made Onni, he had taken the feelings that realization inspired and dropped them down into the depths as well.

Now the emptiness on Lalli's face was no act. He was as still as water, as clear and cold. This was unforeseen, but it was not a problem. He had already cut Emil from his heart months ago. And if the gods meant this to test his resolve, Lalli would not fail them--or himself. He had moved on.

Lalli's voice was cool and flat as he said, "That makes things quicker. We have four boats ready to depart for Eno. You need to divide up your units. Two of the boats can take thirty each. The other two, twenty." Emil nodded, not even trying to hold out a hand to shake or make any move toward Lalli. Sometimes he was smarter than he looked. "You and any other commanding officers should join us on the  _Vinha_. We'll start going over the maps."

"Got it." Emil turned back to the curious soldiers, who were still scrubbing at their faces and grimacing as they adjusted the heavy packs they each wore. His shouted over the din, "All divisions, fall in!"

The Swedish soldiers shuffled about, sorting themselves into their respective units. It wasn't pretty, but it wasn't as bad as Lalli might have feared, considering the reputation that the Swedish Cleansers Corp had for being idiots who would burn their own mother's home down if you just planted a tree in front of it. "All right. 8th and 9th divisions, you're on the front large boat. 12 and 15, you go on the next one. 21 is on the small boat. All lieutenants will join me with the Finns. Sergeants are in charge of their units until we regroup."

Lalli silently watched Emil order about the crowd. He had never seen Emil in summer uniform, he realized distantly. Emil's brown trousers were tucked into the boots that laced up his ankles and had several pockets sewn onto their sides. All Emil wore on his top half was a plain tee-shirt, dyed a marshy green, and he stood with his hands planted on his hips as he watched the soldiers form up in lines in front of the boats he had indicated.

His hair was even shorter than it had been in the winter, cut close to his head on the sides and back, but the front was still long enough to flutter across his forehead in the breeze coming off the lake. There was nothing to indicate that he was a captain, and Lalli could tell that a few of the members of his own side were surprised. They probably thought the Swedes had given them a shoddy deal, sending a green young officer with a bunch of half-trained idiots to burn down their beloved forests. They might not be wrong.

At last Emil turned back. He gestured to the five lieutenants behind him and said, "This'll be all of us then. Should the others begin boarding?"

Lalli looked at the head cleanser, a man named Teemu. The older man's head bobbed up and down as he said in Swedish, "Yes, yes. On boat. We go." Lalli set off toward the  _Vinha_ , waving a hand over his shoulder to indicate that Emil and the others could follow him. He heard Emil order the other units to get on board their respective boats, but he didn't look back as he strode up the gangplank to the one that would be taking them through the twists and bends of the great lake.

The trip should be uneventful; other than a few of the narrowest passages, there was no danger of beasts attacking while they were on the water. He nodded to the boat's navigator, waiting on the deck, and slipped inside the cabin. A herd of footfalls followed him, but Lalli kept his eyes to himself as he picked up the large seal-skin tube they had brought with them. Working the top off, he tugged out the tightly rolled map of the Saimaa area, spreading it out on the wide table that occupied the entire front half of the room. He picked up random ship instruments, placing them along the closest edge to weigh the paper down. It wanted to roll back up again, but another set of hands appeared without him asking and then Emil was there, keeping the other side of the map unfurled as he added objects to hold it down as well.

With a curt nod of acknowledgment, Lalli turned back to the small group. His fellow Finns looked at him expectantly, since he had done all the talking so far. No one seemed eager to struggle with their rusty Swedish, and he wished more than ever that Tuuri hadn't told them that he would be able to translate. He took that wish and dropped it down deep as well.

"Why don't you introduce your men?" he said to Emil, without turning his head far enough to actually look at that familiar face. Emil agreed and named the five other individuals with him, two of whom were actually women. He introduced himself briefly and then it was the Finns' turns. Most said no more than their names, but a few tried to describe their positions as well. They had the head cleanser, three other cleansers with a bit of Swedish, a mage who spoke Icelandic and had simply come along in case any of the Swedes were fluent, and a former sailor who would be helping with the logistics of providing for the massive group and who spoke a trader's jargon that hardly distinguished between Icelandic, Swedish, and Danish.

When everyone was done, Lalli turned to the map. "We should reach Eno before nightfall, and then--"

"You didn't introduce yourself."

Lalli's cheek twitched. "What?"

There was a faint smile threatening to appear on Emil's face, but it died when Lalli narrowed his eyes at him. "You didn't introduce yourself. If you'll be coordinating with everyone..." He left the suggestion open-ended.

Lalli blew his breath out through his nose. "Lalli. Hotakainen. Mage."

There were a few skeptical looks among the other Swedes, and Lalli's fingernails pressed into the map on the table. He hadn't forgotten how dismissive Emil had been of magic at first, too.  _The Swedish are ignorant. They'll learn soon enough how things work in Finland._

Emil cleared his throat pointedly, and Lalli couldn't help glancing his way. The Swede's blue eyes were as chilly as the lake beneath the boat, and his lieutenants' schooled their faces into polite blankness. Emil turned back to the map and gave Lalli a questioning look.

"As I said, we should reach Eno tonight. This afternoon if we are lucky." He pointed to the map, tracing his finger up through the complicated waterways. "Eno is here," he said, tapping the map and then moving his hand to the right, "and this is the Pamilo hydroelectric plant."

"None of the area is cleansed?" Emil asked, leaning over the table to peer at the map. He had correctly guessed what the different shading meant on the various parts of the map; he'd had to learn a lot more about reading maps when they had meant life or death in Denmark four years ago. His fellow cleansers began drifting around the table as well, and Emil stepped closer to Lalli to make space. His shoulder bumped into Lalli's and neither of them moved away. There was no reason for Lalli to move away. It would be more obvious if he pulled away, and Emil would think that he was bothered by the contact. He was too proud to allow that. He didn't know what Emil's excuse was, though, for keeping that bare arm pressed against his.

He looked under his lashes at Emil and saw the other man swallow, his Adam's apple jumping up and down though he kept his gaze fixed on the map. "That's right," Lalli said. He tapped the point of land where the town was located. "Eno is protected by wooden walls on the land side. The spit here is the only part that is cleansed."

Emil traced up and down the water with the middle finger of his right hand, and Lalli studied his rough, short nails. He could remember Emil having trimmed and buffed nails when he first met him, but not when that had changed. During the expedition? In the past several years? Since jul?

"So your people are going all the way up this lake and down again every time they need to get to the plant." Emil shook his head. "That's ridiculous." That went without saying. Currently the only way to reach the plant was over the water, requiring supplies to be sailed up one arm and then down the other. It was a trip of over 30 kilometers, to reach a plant only 15 kilometers away.

Lalli waited for him to say something worth commenting on. There were golden hairs on Emil's forearm, glistening in the sunlight streaming in through the fore windows. His skin was hotter than Lalli's was, and being pressed up against him was like touching a warm radiator. Emil smelled of some spicy fragrance and sweat and something burnt. He'd had that smell on himself once.

"Is this an old highway?" Emil asked, pointing to one of the lines tracing across the land. Lalli nodded. "Many cars?"

"Not like Denmark, if that's what you're imagining."

A rueful grin flashed across Emil's face, despite Lalli's short tone. "That's good. Some parts of Sweden are about as bad as Copenhagen was. Clearing out all the cars takes three times as long as demoing old buildings." He checked the scale on the corner of the map, measuring it against his knuckle and then seeing how it compared to the area around Eno. "So we could follow that for easily five kilometers or more. Then it would make the most sense to go straight northeast from here, but this inlet..." His finger was on the narrow bit of water that kept them from making a straight path to Pamilo. "Any bridges left?"

Lalli shook his head. "There never were any, even in the old days."

"What about building one?"

They both leaned in closer to the map. Lalli glanced at the scale again and then peered down at the hand-drawn lines, searching for the narrowest part of of the water.

"Here," Emil pointed out, his voice coming from so close a distance that Lalli had a hard time not thinking of other moments when Emil's face had been pressed against to his. "Don't you think?"

Lalli nodded. "About thirty meters across still." He tapped his fingers on the map. "How much longer would it take to go around the inlet?"

Emil measured the route around the water, using his first knuckle as a ruler again. "Fifteen, twenty more kilometers. Without knowing the terrain, I'd say it would take _at least_ two, three months to clear. But it's not just a question of time. What's the point of making a land route that's just as long as the water route you already have?" His eyes scanned across the map. "What about this?" He tapped a name northeast of Pamilo. "You have another town here?"

"Yes. Why?"

Emil glanced at him, raising his eyebrows. "Someday the corridor could be extended there. Isn't that your government's plan? With a steady source of electricity and bit more industry, your people could eventually turn Saimaa into the next Mora."

That perfectly Swedish optimism took Lalli by surprise. It hadn't been much in evidence in December. He let himself look into Emil's face and actually see it for the first time, and he realized that the desperate light was gone from the blue eyes that were searching his. Emil looked tired and there were shadows beneath his eyes, but he seemed at ease in a way that he had not three months earlier.

"I don't think we're making it an extra 25 kilometers in this one summer," he pointed out sharply.

"Dream big, Lalli." Emil grinned and nudged Lalli with his shoulder.

"Idiots may dream big, but that doesn't mean they can build a thirty meter bridge in a summer."

"Not a proper bridge, no. But a floating bridge? Maybe." Emil's confident smile hadn't faded. If anything, it may have grown when Lalli didn't pull his gaze away. This wasn't the Emil who winced every time he looked at Lalli and who was sorry, _so sorry_ , that he had given Lalli a taste of what he had always longed for. Emil did not look sorry now. His bright blue eyes burned into Lalli's with a directness that he didn't dare try to interpret. He couldn't.  _Could he?_

"Bridge?" Teemu repeated the Swedish word and Lalli jumped. The others were all watching them. The Finnish military members from Keuruu were gaping at him as though they didn't recognize him, and he hadn't even remembered that there was anyone else listening. He hadn't remembered there was anyone else present but himself and Emil.

What had happened to his resolve? It had slipped through his fingers like handfuls of sand picked up while diving to the bottom of the lake. He stepped away from Emil, the cooler air rushing in to kiss his arm as soon as his skin stopped touching Emil's. He took another step back, crossing his arms across his waist, digging his fingers into his own forearms.  _What were you doing?_  

Emil was looking between Lalli and Teemu, and he began repeating his question about the bridge in slow, careful Swedish for the head cleanser's benefit. Lalli kept his lips clamped tight. At last he had his answer: he understood why Emil was here now.

The gods had not sent Emil back to him to test Lalli's resolve; they had sent him to show Lalli that he had failed to learn from their lesson.

He closed his eyes to block out the sight of the man before him, and sent a bitter prayer of thanks to the heavens. He knew better than to ignore the gods' gifts, even when they felt more like punishment. If he hadn't managed to learn from a single night, then they would ensure that he learned his lesson this time--and it was time he learned it. He had failed to cut this ruinous love from his heart, but he would not fail again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was going to post this last night, but I wasn't sure about inflicting more pain. This was a tough one, too. I went through drafts where Lalli was devastated, furious, shaken, etc. In the end, Lalli is controlled. Or thinks he is. We'll see how his control lasts.


	13. Pitseleh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I'm not what's missing from your life now_  
>  _I could never be the puzzle pieces_  
>  \- Pitseleh, Elliott Smith

**13**

 

Emil was looking helplessly at him. Teemu's expression was more controlled, but Lalli could see the plea in his eyes that the old man was too proud to make out loud. The boat sailed across the broad lake, whose waters could be seen reflecting the sunlight through the windows at the fore. This was his test. Lalli took a deep breath through his nose and pried his mouth open to say, "The Swedish captain wants to know whether a bridge would be possible." The words were spoken in Finnish, for Teemu's sake.

Lalli kept his distance from the table and did not look at Emil again. He would do everything that was expected of him for this job and make sure that the project was a success--and he would do it without being distracted by the temptation that Emil presented. He would prove to his gods that he was still worthy of their gifts.

"A bridge?" Teemu asked. He jabbed a finger at the map. "You mean to cross the Luhtapohjanjoki?"

Lalli nodded. "He asked about a floating bridge. He doesn't seem to be in favor of going around by land."

Teemu grumbled, eying his younger counterpart, "No one is. But it is the simplest way." He continued staring down at the map, though. "A floating bridge, huh? We'd have to talk to one of the academics with some engineering. I've never seen a floating bridge span anything more than a small river."

Lalli kept away from the table, and it seemed to work. Emil did not try to move closer again as the trio discussed what little Emil knew of floating bridges. Emil kept his eyes fixed on Teemu as he asked about lumber sources, the kind of traffic they could expect going to and from the power plant, and how long term of a solution the people of the area were looking for. They discussed the feasibility of hauling wood for a bridge, whether there was anyone in Eno with the engineering expertise to design one, and how much time construction might take versus cleansing a less direct route.

Emil asked detailed questions about the terrain: how flat it was, how heavily wooded, how old and tall the trees were, how often they could expect to come across homes or other buildings that needed to be demolished and cleared away. Lalli knew all of the answers, since he'd been scouting the route on his own for the five days he had been in Eno, but he didn't offer his opinions. He translated messages back and forth, and kept himself invisible.

He could do this. If he just kept his distance and allowed himself to think of nothing but the words and the work, he could stand in the same room as Emil and it would mean nothing at him. He would _make_ it mean nothing to him until it actually did.

The schedule was discussed, and the division of labor--the felling of the trees, delimbing and preparation work, constructing the fences at the edges of the cleansed land. They worked their way through the plans as they sailed up the lake. Work would need to begin immediately the next day. The Finns had Sweden's help for this one season, and the next year they would be obligated to send their own cleansers to Sweden to finish off cleansing the entire Mora-Östersund line once and for all. There was a great deal to finish before fall.

Flatbread and cheeses appeared as lunch rolled around. The Swedes devoured the food; perhaps they hadn't known to eat before disembarking from the ship from Pori. Lalli held a round of bread in his hands but didn't get a chance to take a single bite of it, since he was constantly being asked to translate things for clarification or passing on information too complicated for Teemu to manage in Swedish.

He was still holding the bread when every other scrap of food had disappeared. Emil was the one to step in front of him and stand by Teemu, clapping the older man on the shoulder with a friendly smile. "Tell me about you, Teemu," he said in slow and clear Swedish. "Have you ever visited Sweden?" He shot Lalli one look, his eyes moving pointedly down to the hard bread in Lalli's hand, then turned back around as he guided Teemu away.

Tearing off a hunk and shoving it in his mouth before anyone else could ask him anything, Lalli chewed methodically and swallowed the bread without tasting it. He would not think about what the gesture meant. He would take the opportunity to eat because he needed to. He was not depending on Emil's consideration for him. He was doing what was required for his job. He would not be distracted.

 

 

They arrived in Eno just in time for the evening meal. Lalli translated Teemu's instructions for the Swedes, telling them where they could direct their underlings for the night. The flood of curious cleansers trooped off the boats and through the sparsely-populated town to the large encampment that had been set up outside of its walls. Tents were assigned, and the Finnish cooks already had huge pots of stew boiling and ready to be served. The lieutenants all rejoined their divisions to pass along what had been decided on the boat trip up the lake, but Emil remained with the Finnish group as they joined the rest of the project leaders at the temporary headquarters in an Old World church just inside the town walls.

Tuuri was among the other skalds and planners inside. She looked up and her eyes found Lalli as soon as the door to the hall opened. He watched as her eyes moved behind him to where he knew Emil would be coming through the door. There was no surprise in that look, and Lalli realized for the first time:  _She knew he was coming._ It was like a stinging slap in the face. She hadn't warned him. More than that, she had sent him down to meet Emil when she could have gone to interpret as well or better than Lalli himself could.

The realization was like a boulder tipped into the waters of his mind. The pool inside of him was already half full of the many things he had dropped in that day and hadn't yet been able to safely take out and dispose of. Waves sloshed and rocked him, but he couldn't come unmoored now. There were too many people there to see.  _Emil_ was there to see.

He must have failed to keep his face controlled, because Tuuri immediately excused herself from the conversation she had been having and started his way. Lalli slipped out of the building, skirting past Emil and the clump of Finnish cleansers behind himself without looking any of them in the eyes. After the long day, he wanted nothing more than to leave the town and escape into the forest where he could be alone. But some 180 cleansers currently stood in between him and it. Luckily the town of Eno was more than half wooded, and he jogged across the broken asphalt road toward the closest trees.

The door banged behind him and he heard footsteps following him. "Lalli!"

He paused, looking up at the twilight sky stretching overhead. The stars were just beginning to appear among the violet streaks. His eyes tracked across them, hoping to find some sign for what he should do.

"Lalli?" Tuuri's voice was soft and hesitant this time.

"You knew," he said tonelessly. He could not let the anger show. "You knew that he was coming."

"I didn't know," she started, and Lalli turned on his cousin with a glare. She blanched and went on. "I didn't know until the end of February. There was supposed to be another captain on the project, then suddenly Emil's name appeared in the paperwork. I tried asking around, but no one on our side had any idea or even cared. One Swedish captain is the same as another to them."

"So you only knew for an entire month without telling me."

"We were already part of the project, Lalli!" she shot back. "Unless you're planning to face a military tribune for abandoning the orders you were given, what could knowing earlier have changed for you?"

He didn't have an argument for her. Lalli knew it probably would have been impossible for him to get off the project. He'd had almost no say in joining it, and while his skills were valuable--valuable enough that they'd made him a necessary part of this project--he didn't have the rank or the connections to try to get out of this job once he'd been put on it.

"You didn't have to send me down there to have to  _deal_  with him alone," he hissed. "Was that why you were too 'busy' to come act as interpreter yourself?"

She threw her hands up in the air. "I thought maybe you two would actually talk, and you could get over whatever has been up your ass since December!"

_Bad choice of words, Tuuri._

Lalli didn't trust himself to speak. He clenched his hands into fists, closing his eyes and praying to his gods to find some kinder way to teach him. But they had never listened to those kinds of wishes anyway.

"What happened that was so terrible?" Tuuri asked, and her voice was gentle now. "One day we were all fine, and you two seemed as close as you had ever been, and the next day you wouldn't even speak with him. And you've never even told me why."

"One night, and everything went wrong," Lalli agreed bitterly. "What could we have possibly done to ruin everything in the span of one night?"

Tuuri's hand rose slowly to her mouth but he still heard her gasp. "You don't mean--"

He shouldn't have said anything. He hadn't meant to tell her, but his hold on himself was beginning to slip. He needed to get out of this town and away from these people, at least for a while. His cousin stepped in front of him to look up into his face. She asked in a hushed voice, "Lalli, you and Emil...?"

Tuuri knew where his preferences lay. He had told her after the third time she'd tried to fix him up with a girl in the year after the expedition. He had not told her about Emil specifically, but Lalli thought she had put it together. The concerned looks she had constantly given him in Mora--she had to know.

Lalli gave a short nod. "And he was very sorry to have made such a mistake. He ran promptly back to his girlfriend, and hopefully swore off vodka for life."

Tuuri was biting her lip and looking like she might cry, and Lalli had to hold himself back from snapping at her. Why was she the one who looked like crying? He was the one living through this, and he wasn't sniveling, was he?

"I'm sorry," Tuuri whispered. "I had no idea. I knew you two must have fought about something, but I never thought..." She held her palm up toward him and waited, not forcing anything until he was ready. Lalli looked at her, and he couldn't stay mad. Tuuri was one of the three people alive in the world who Lalli felt comfortable being himself around most of the time--and he was trying to cut one of the other three out of his life entirely. Unless he wanted to be stuck with no one but Onni, he couldn't slap away the hand she was offering him.

He took her hand briefly and squeezed it, then snatched his own hand back and folded it across his waist. Tuuri lifted her fingers to her lips, and he could guess from the faraway look in her eyes that she was remembering those days in December. "And he came back just to wish you a happy birthday," she murmured, as if she were talking to herself and not to him. The reminder stabbed at Lalli. He had been miserable company their last few days in Mora, and so Tuuri had given up on any sort of festive New Year's Eve. She had been the one to suggest that they move back to Björköfjärden a day early and simply have a quiet night before their return home. Then Emil had appeared, unannounced and unanticipated, just moments before they left the country.

Lalli had spent the entire trip back to Finland trying to figure it out. How had Emil ended up there? Tuuri had told him--after the last time that he had kicked Emil out of his hotel room--that Emil had gone back to Östersund with his girlfriend. There was no direct route from there to Björköfjärden. Lalli had seen the maps and could bring them up in his mind as easily as he could any map he had seen for more than a few seconds. So Emil must have gone all the way from Östersund to Mora, and then to Björköfjärden--and for what? To give Lalli a couple of meaningless words? You wouldn't make a trip like that for no reason. But what did it mean then?

The only explanation that Lalli had been able to come up with was that Emil truly had meant it when he insisted that he still wanted to be friends. Lalli did not.

Emil had tried apologizing. He'd made excuses. He'd wanted to cling to Lalli's friendship, but Lalli had finally understood that he couldn't be friends with Emil. He'd thought it unlikely he would ever see Emil again in his life after the end of that trip, but that hadn't mattered. Even if it were only for the last few days, Lalli had decided that he was finished. He didn't want even a part of Emil if he couldn't have all of him. He couldn't have any of Emil.

"Lalli, Emil wasn't originally supposed to be the one on this project." Tuuri was trying to catch his eye; he could tell from his peripheral vision but he still didn't look her way. "Maybe it's not just coincidence that he's here in Finland."

Of course it wasn't coincidence. There was no coincidence when it came to the gods. He knew what was Tuuri was suggesting, but she was wrong.

"Go back inside, Tuuri. They need you to interpret." Lalli began to back away, toward the town walls and freedom. "They need you in there, not me."  _And I need to leave._

 

 

When Lalli came back to camp after several hours of blessed solitude in the forest, the heavy gate had been closed and barred for the night. Lalli didn't need to even pause outside of it; he'd come and gone this way several times during the week that he'd spent scouting the area. He wrapped his left hand around one of the rough timbers and wedged his foot against the wood, jumping up to catch the top of the gate with the fingers of his right hand. Dragging himself up, he scrambled up and over it to drop lightly to the ground on the other side. Rubbing his hands together to brush off the bark clinging to his palms, he turned toward the side of the camp where his tent waited.

"Lalli!"

Lalli jumped, spinning around and staring up in disbelief. He wasn't often surprised, but seeing Emil hanging over the edge of the watch tower beside the fence was not something he had expected. It was hardly more than a flat platform balanced atop four pillars, and Emil appeared to lying on his stomach on it as he looked down at Lalli.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"Just making friends with Kunu here." Emil grinned up toward the Finnish boy who appeared over his shoulder. Lalli recognized the young cleanser; he had already been here in Eno when Lalli arrived. He looked no more than fifteen or sixteen, which was probably why he had gotten stuck with the night watch. He also looked positively sick with nervousness.

"I'm sorry, um, sir," the boy babbled. "I couldn't get him to understand he wasn't supposed to be up here, and he's their head cleanser, right? I can't just force him to go. I'm just a new recruit, and he's an officer. And...and..."

Lalli cut him off, responding in Finnish as well. "I know. It's not your fault."

"Can you tell him to go?" the boy called Kunu asked, his tone beseeching. "And tell him he's not supposed to come up here in the future?"

Lalli looked Emil in the eye as he muttered in their native tongue, "He knows he's not supposed to be there."

Emil's expression twisted into something that Lalli thought looked sad, but he wasn't sure. The night was dark. "Talking about me?" Emil asked, putting an elbow on the edge of the platform. "That's a bit rude."

"So is getting in the way of someone's work." His voice was cool when he responded in Swedish, but still Emil was smiling faintly. Lalli didn't understand it. He wouldn't allow himself to think about it.

Lalli turned his attention back on the boy and returned to Finnish. "You have my permission to knock him off that thing, if it helps."

The boy went even whiter in the starlight. "A-are you serious? Sir?"

Lalli thought about it. "Probably not."

"Sir?"

Lalli sighed. "What?"

"Do you think you could make him go?"

_I wish._

Emil interrupted in Swedish once again: "You're making me feel lonely up here."

Lalli gave him a long look. Emil's smile had disappeared at some point, and he returned the look solemnly. Lalli turned away and started walking. "Good night, Emil," he said in a final tone. "Please don't bother our people."

"Good night, Lalli," Emil called after him. The words sent a shiver crawling over Lalli's scalp. They shouldn't mean anything, though. People said good night to one another all the time. Lalli picked up his pace and kept walking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aughhhh. [Pitseleh.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wm2QYhQItaU) I don't know if this is right time to use this song, but it had to be used. I didn't even know it when I began writing this, but it is this relationship in one single song. It is this entire fic.
> 
>  
> 
> /Hits repeat again


	14. Somebody That I Used to Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I had tender feelings that you made hard_  
>  _But it's your heart, not mine, that's scarred_  
>  _So when I go home I'll be happy to go_  
>  _You're just somebody that I used to know_  
>  \- Somebody That I Used to Know, Elliott Smith

**14**  

 

Lalli didn't like remembering Mora. Taking those memories out was like pressing on a bruised bone, and long after he stopped looking at them, the pain still lingered. He had agreed to go to Sweden with Tuuri because he could see how much she wanted him to. But when she had brought up the idea, his first thought had been of Emil. Any reminder of Sweden or Denmark or the events of the expedition were inextricably tangled up with memories of Emil.

He had fallen for Emil when they were nineteen, though he hadn't known what to do with his feelings then. He had told Emil the truth, after all: he had never been attracted to anyone like that until Emil had worked his way into Lalli's life and heart. And once Emil had gotten in, Lalli hadn't been able to get him out, no matter how many times he had told himself to give up. He could go entire weeks without remembering Emil at times--and then something would trigger the memories, and Emil would haunt him for days on end like a restless ghost.

Lalli had told himself to give up more times that he could count. During the expedition, when he had begun to realize what it was he was feeling. In the weeks after Sigrun had died, when he had told himself to give up on any hope of surviving the Silent World. In the years after he had parted ways with a broken Emil, when no other lover had ever succeeded in eclipsing the Swede's memory inside him.

Yet he still hadn't succeeded in forgetting Emil by the time he'd gone to Sweden with Tuuri that December. He hadn't let himself actually hope that he would somehow _see_ Emil again, of course. The odds were ridiculous. And even if they did meet, he had known that nothing could come of it. Yet the possibility had existed in the back of his mind and refused to disappear. Then Emil had called out to him on the street on his second day in Sweden.

At first Lalli had thought he must have the gods' favor. Emil had appeared before him after so long, and they had  _talked_. He had been able to have an actual conversation with Emil for the first time, and everything had been so easy. The things that were so difficult with other people were easy with Emil. He had known how Emil would act when he was teased and when he was flustered and when he was pleased. And Emil had reacted just as he expected. The understanding that they had shared with looks and touches when they were nineteen and twenty hadn't been imagined.

It had been better than Lalli had ever dared believe it could be. Emil had leaned into him and needed him and confided in him. Emil had sought him out at every opportunity, gravitating toward Lalli as though Lalli was the most necessary thing in his life. And the temptation had been too much. Lalli had let himself believe in dreams and fantasies. He had let himself believe that Emil could want him--for a few drunken hours. He'd let himself think that perhaps he could finally have love and understanding and a place to belong again. He'd been a fool.

 

  

Lalli scratched on the heavy canvas of the tent. There was a groan and a muffled curse and, after a bit of fumbling, the flap was thrown back to reveal a bleary-eyed Emil in just a tee shirt and his shorts. "Shit. I overslept, didn't I?"

That didn't seem to require a response, so Lalli settled on a raised eyebrow as he stared wordlessly at the man he had gotten to spend a single night with. He had been sent by Teemu to find Emil, who had failed to show up on time for their morning briefing before the rest of the troops were to assemble. Lalli had tried to suggest that they didn't need a mage for such a simple task, but Teemu had given him a single look and Lalli had not said another word. In Keuruu, he might have had more ground to refuse the head cleanser's request but on this project, Teemu's orders were absolute unless it came to a threat. Mages did always have the last word when it came to trolls.

"I know, I know," Emil was already saying as he turned away, though Lalli hadn't said a thing. He caught the canvas flap as it fell, peering into the tent. It was hard to believe that it had only been occupied for a night: every item that had been in Emil's bag seemed to have already made it out and been scattered around the small space. There were clothes, a blanket thrown halfway off the sleeping roll, a small bag that probably held personal items, and a surprising number of books. _Books?_ There was also an odd smell trapped within the canvas: sweet and flowery and burnt. It wasn't a smell he'd ever associated with Emil. Except perhaps the burnt part.

The Swede grabbed up the trousers that had been tossed on the ground, stepping into them. Lalli purposefully did _not_ think about a similar scene that had occurred in a hotel room in Mora three months before. "I couldn't get to sleep for ages last night," Emil muttered, flopping onto his sleeping roll to pull socks on, then his boots. Snagging a light jacket that had been hanging from the roof pole, he ducked out through the opening as Lalli swung out of the way to avoid being run into.

The two of them strode off between the rows of tents, falling into step automatically. Lalli's stride was normally longer than Emil's, but the Swedish captain seemed bristling with an energy that Lalli could only interpret as anger. _Anger about what? Angry that he overslept?_ He remembered that it shouldn't matter to him what Emil was upset about. He said nothing.

They passed by several rows of tents, where the cleansers were beginning to stir and step outside. When they saw Lalli and Emil going past, most quickly found something else to look at. Emil's stony expression seemed to warn off his Swedish troops, and the Finns knew better than to get in the way of a mage in a hurry. Lalli realized that this was his chance to talk to Emil one-on-one, before they rejoined the rest of the project leaders. But did he want to say anything? Should he try to make it clear to Emil where they stood?

Emil sighed, then shook himself. "Look, Lalli," he started in a low voice, speaking before Lalli had the chance to figure out what he wanted to do. His tone made Lalli's shoulders hitch up. Had Emil been thinking the same thing? That this was his opportunity to talk to Lalli in private? When no one else was around to hear about his past shame? Suddenly Lalli was feeling quite sure he didn't want to talk.

"No."

"No what?" Emil asked. He didn't fool Lalli for an instant. Lalli knew this act. Anger sizzled through his veins, but he let it sink beneath the cool waters in his mind.

"Just don't. I will talk to you about the project. I will talk to you about work. But that is all."

Lalli wasn't looking at Emil as they walked down the rows of tents. He could see the group waiting up ahead, across a large open space where all of the cleansers were due to gather in less than half an hour.

"You mean I can't even tell you that I'm sorry?"

The words were softly spoken, but Lalli had no trouble hearing them. His voice was equally soft but far more dangerous when he said, "I am not the least bit interested in hearing again how _sorry_ you are about what happened."

"So I'm not allowed to apologize?" They walked side by side past clumps of cleansers who were beginning to shuffle their way to the food line, where huge kettles of porridge were steaming. "Am I allowed to tell you that you're still the best friend I have? That I never meant to hurt you?"

_I don't seem able to stop you._ "Does that have to do with our work?"

"I'd say it does, but I guess I can see why you might disagree."

Lalli kept his eyes fixed on Teemu across the open field. Once they reached him, Lalli would be safe. Emil wouldn't keep talking about these kinds of things in front of the other project members. His strides grew even longer, and he felt sweat tickling at his temples in the warm sunshine.

"So, tell me about your work then." Emil didn't seem ready to give up on talking. "What exactly do mages do for a cleansing operation?"

Lalli grimaced. Did this count as a fair topic? He grudgingly decided that it did, so he explained in a short tone, "Each flank is assigned a mage. We remain at the front, on the lookout for trolls and beasts, and repel whatever we can with spells. If spells do not repel a threat, then we are the first line of defense while non-combatants retreat."

"You mean you fight off grosslings? Alone?"

"That's right. We won't expect you to fight. You and the rest of the Swedes can retreat back to the safety of the camp."

Emil tried to stop Lalli with a light touch on his bare arm. "I've already watched you go off to face danger alone more times than I can stand. I'd rather fight beside you."

Lalli shook the touch off. "Then you've come here for the wrong reason."

 

 

Lalli felt a kiss of power against his cheek and looked up. It was a signal from the mage left at the base and would have gone out to all three of the mages in the field. There was one on lookout on the left flank, another on the right, and Lalli had been taking point at the front of the mass of cleansers pushing their way straight into the wilderness. He glanced up at the sun. It was only a few hours after noon, but they would have to pull back for the day.

He gave the order to the Finnish cleansers first, then found the Swedish lieutenant who was supposed to be in charge of their forward units. "Time to return to camp. We're done for the day." 

The woman frowned, wiping her forehead with the back of her arm. "It can't be much past two. Is this really how you Finns run your cleansing projects? No wonder you're so far behind us."

His temper crackled, but he was sure his face hadn't betrayed him. "We will be sure to work you harder tomorrow. Today we will meet to discuss the bridge possibilities. That was _your_ captain's idea, as I recall." His voice never rose in pitch but the woman's face hardened. _Guess that wasn't tactful._ He didn't care. He stood with his arms crossed, watching as the cleansers began to pick up their saws and axes and flamethrowers to straggle back toward the camp. With a few soft words under his breath, he sent a signal back to the mage there so that she knew he would be on his way as soon as he could.

He paced after his cleansers as they trudged the short path to the camp. It was littered with freshly hewn stumps and felled trees that had been delimbed, waiting to be used to construct the palisades that would surround the corridor once they had extended it far enough from north to south. It would be forty meters from side to side once it was done, for the entire length. It would be days yet before that work could begin, though. First they would down the trees that could be used for the walls, preparing them to be used as lumber. Then the smaller saplings and bush would be burnt away to clear the land. Only after that was done could construction be started.

Lalli always had to be the last to leave the wild land, but he didn't mind the excuse to hang far back and not have to speak with anyone this afternoon. His mood hadn't improved since that morning, when his day had begun with a faceful of half-dressed Emil. He watched as the crowd began to thin, disappearing behind the rough log fence they had constructed around the campsite. Lalli paused, though, when he saw that his group was not the last to return. They should have been. He frowned at the scene to his left. Nearly a dozen Swedish cleansers were still hard at work and he recognized one in particular even when his back was turned to Lalli. _What is he doing now?_

Checking that his group was safely to the gate, Lalli veered off so that he could go to the side of the mage in charge of the late flank. The older man had a sour expression on his face.

"What happened?" Lalli asked.

"I _told_  the Swedes that we were supposed to return to the camp. Some of them left, but not all of them." With a disgusted noise, he turned and started walking back in the direction of Eno. "You speak their awful language. You deal with them."

Anger flared up within Lalli. He spun toward the the Swedes, and his voice cracked out across the field of trampled scrub. "Emil!"

The captain straightened up from the saw he had been helping pull through the thick trunk of a centuries-old spruce. His shirt was soaked through with sweat and he shoved his hair out of his face as he squinted in Lalli's direction. Lalli jerked his head to the side and the easy smile on Emil's face disappeared. Looking grim, he jogged over to Lalli.

"What's wrong?"

"That is what I want to know," Lalli asked. He was fighting not to cross his arms defensively over his chest. He hated that he had gotten stuck dealing with this confrontation. "Why is your team still here? Your mage told you to leave."

"Yeah, and I sent most of the unit back--everyone who was finished with what they were doing. But we were halfway through these last two trees, and it's hardly even afternoon. We could spare a bit of time to finish things up here properly." Emil's eyebrows had drawn low over his eyes as Lalli continued to stare at him unflinchingly. "I tried explaining to your mage, but under our protocol, we don't leave a site until any compromised trees have been brought down. You can't just leave a tree half sawn down, Lalli. It's a hazard."

His voice was asking Lalli to understand. Lalli felt his lips curl back, and he bared his teeth as he asked, "A hazard? Remind me, Emil: what is the mage's job?"

"Keeping away trolls?" Emil said uncertainly, seeming thrown off balance by Lalli's fury. Some of the other Swedes were looking in their direction.

"Keeping your crews  _safe._ Your mage knows this land. You do not. If your mage tells you there is danger, your people need to know to run. Without question." He jabbed Emil in the chest, and it was the first time he had touched the Swede willingly. He pulled his hand back as if he'd been burned. "But now you show your cleansers that it is fine to ignore a mage's orders. You show them that your judgment is more reliable than his. So what do you think might happen when they are in the middle of their work and a mage tells them to run? Will they listen? Or might they hesitate? Might they argue just long enough to lose their lives?"

He watched with some satisfaction as Emil's expression became increasingly bleak. But when Emil lifted a hand as if he meant to take Lalli's arm, Lalli jerked out of reach. Emil took the hand back, clenching it into a fist as he said, "You're right. I didn't consider that." Droplets of sweat still trickled down his neck, and Lalli refused to let himself be distracted by them. "What do you suggest that we do now? Would you prefer that we leave these trees in their current state, or finish the job before turning back?"

Lalli had to think about the decision, once it was put in his own lap. He had to admit that Emil had a point as well. There was no immediate danger; it wasn't strictly necessary to insist that they stop when it did seem risky to leave a 40 meter tall tree half sawn through. Finally he said, "Someone who can recognize our Swedish-speaking members should go back and report what is happening. Either you or one of your lieutenants who met with us yesterday. I cannot go now that your mage left; no one is to be left unattended out here without a trained mage."

"We do our job without mages in Sweden, you know," Emil pointed out. "I think we could make it forty meters back to the fence on our own."

Lalli actually hated Emil for a moment. "This is _not_ Sweden. Don't assume that the things you might do there are acceptable here."

"Are we still talking about work?" Emil asked in a quiet undertone, and Lalli was reminded violently of the night he had spent the past day and half trying not to recall.

"We are talking about you doing your job and me doing mine," he hissed. "I will not disobey my commands, even if you do not have the same respect for orders."

Emil's lips pressed into a tight line. "I understand." He began to step away, but then paused. "And, Lalli?" His sky blue eyes met Lalli's for a moment. "I'm going to fix this."

And despite all of his protests, Lalli wanted to believe that he was talking about more than just the situation between the Swedish cleansers and the Finnish mages. The thought that Emil hated how things had turned out as much as he did made his heart thump painfully against his ribs. _Could that really be why Emil came here? To try to make things right again?_

But what would Emil's idea of "right" even be? The kind of friends they had been for a few brief days in December? The kind of friends who didn't talk to one another for years? Or the kind of friends who fucked from time to time, without ever telling anyone else? Lalli wondered for the first time if that was possible. If Tuuri was right, Emil had come all this way--seven months out of his girlfriend's sight--by choice. Would he have come so far just to repair a friendship that he'd neglected for years? Was it possible that Emil had meant it in Mora, when he'd said he might want more of what they'd had that night?

_Have you forgotten what happened? He only touched you because he was drunk, and the instant he sobered up, it was all apologies and excuses. You think he wants you despite all that? And even if he did..._

_When it's over, he will go back home to his girlfriend and you will be left with nothing. That's all you've ever had with Emil._

Lalli had woken up first that morning, as soon as the night had begun lifting with the first hint of the coming dawn. He had looked over at Emil with eyes already adjusted to the dark, and he had given up on breathing. It would have been impossible to try even if he had wanted to; the mix of wonder and fear filling him had crushed all of the oxygen from his lungs. He had known then that he'd made the most beautiful and terrible mistake he ever could have.

Emil had been drunk and falling apart for days. When he had shown up that night, Lalli had taken his alcohol and lost control and seized exactly what he wanted for once in his life. A part of him might have even wanted to Emil to reject him. He'd known that he was playing with fire. But stupid, desperate, drunk Emil hadn't pushed him away. He had let himself catch fire beneath Lalli's touch, and they had burned together. And then all that had been left in the morning were the cold ashes and an empty vodka bottle. 

Moving slowly and carefully, Lalli had gotten up and dressed and then taken a seat in the chair across the room with his arms wrapped around himself for protection. He had watched Emil slowly begin to stir, swimming up through the depths of sleep. He had told himself to be ready for what was coming. He wasn't stupid. He had known what might happen once Emil opened his eyes and realized what had happened. And yet a part of him had still hoped. Somewhere in the dark cracks of his heart had been the hope that Emil would open his eyes and see Lalli and smile a beatific smile that existed only for him. Instead Lalli had seen Emil's eyes open, focus on the room around him, and fill with horror. And the heart that he hadn't even known was still intact and whole inside of him--the heart he'd thought crushed beyond all loving as a child--had broken into shards as sharp as shattered glass.


	15. Everything Means Nothing to Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Everything means nothing to me_  
>  _Everything means nothing to me_  
>  _Everything means nothing to me_  
>  \- Everything Means Nothing to Me, Elliot Smith

**15**

 

"We have the meeting now to discuss the bridge?"

Lalli glanced over at Emil, who had stopped beside him as the others streamed around the felled tree on their way to the gate. They had finished the work after Emil sent his lieutenant to explain what had happened. 

"We did. It should have started fifteen minutes ago, which is why your unit was told to return to the camp."

Emil flinched. "Got it. I was thinking to get cleaned up a bit, but let's just go straight there." He called out to one of the last cleansers ahead of them and gave him a set of instructions: "Run ahead now and find Anders, then tell him to gather up everyone we talked about. They should meet us at the west gate."

The young cleanser nodded and took off at a dash. Lalli didn't even bother asking what the message had been about. He didn't feel like encouraging Emil. They had hardly walked into the fenced campsite when a small crowd of Swedes joined them: the five lieutenants that he was becoming familiar with, and three others he didn't know. Lalli didn't acknowledge any of them, striding through the camp toward the town gate where they were supposed to have met the others twenty minutes prior. He could already see the small knot of his countrymen waiting, and recognized Tuuri's short figure at once. _Thank Ukko. She can translate then._

The conversation stopped as Lalli approached with the Swedes trailing behind him. From the expressions ranged around the circle, it seemed Emil had done himself no favors on his first full day in Eno. If Lalli hadn't been so annoyed himself, he might have felt sorry for his once-best-friend. But instead he was left wondering yet again why the hell Emil had chosen to come join this project.

"I'm sorry we're late," Emil said as he walked up, taking the initiative to explain first. "We misunderstood the protocol here in Finland, but it should not happen again."

Tuuri gave him an unsure smile. Lalli could guess that she was feeling hesitant to greet him too warmly when everyone around her was annoyed with the Swedish captain. "Of course. I'm sure there are a lot of things everyone will have to get used to when collaborating on a project like this." She dimpled as she gave him a more genuine smile.

Lalli could hear the relief in Emil's voice as he greeted Tuuri with a half-hug, releasing her quickly from his sweaty hold. Tuuri tucked her hair behind her ear and turned back to the group behind her. "We have the mayor of Eno here with us, and an engineer who will be able to give us a better idea of what will be possible for crossing the Lutapohjanjoki."

"So we're considering the bridge option?" Emil asked, sounding hopeful. He shoved his sweaty hair back off of his brow.

Tuuri quirked her head to the side. "They seem pretty doubtful about the chance of building a bridge on piers, but they really want to check out the area first to see what the options are. A lot depends on the conditions there."

"No one here is familiar with the area?"

Tuuri looked at her cousin. "Lalli, you've been there, right?"

He shrugged. "I scouted it last week."

Emil looked between his officers and Lalli. "Well, we've already stopped early today. I don't want it to have been for nothing or to waste another day. Is it possible we could make it there and back before dark?"

Everyone turned to look at Lalli. He pressed his lips together for a moment, then rattled off, "It's ten kilometers to the inlet, and the sun will set around seven. If you want to even consider going today, you all have to be able to keep up a good pace through rough terrain and we would have to leave at once."

He had kept his eyes on Teemu, who had the final say after all. The old cleanser took a breath and looked around the assembled group. "Then what are we waiting for?"

  

 

Lalli jogged ahead of the odd gaggle of people. He was used to scouting ahead for hunters or cleansers, but not academics and normal citizens. He kept having to slow down and wait for the group to catch up. The middle-aged mayor was panting, and Tuuri's breath was misting the inside of her haz-mask. The Swedish and Finnish cleansers who had come along at least had little trouble keeping up.

He paused again to let them draw nearer, trying to pinpoint the niggling presence he felt off to his right. It was still far away, but he wanted to keep track of it with this many helpless people at his back. His eyes unfocused as he tapped into other senses--only to be jerked rudely back to the spot by Emil nudging him in the arm.

" _What?"_  he hissed. He wasn't feeling any more generous toward Emil so far.

"Can I ask you a favor?"

Lalli stared at him and then started walking forward again, leaving it up to Emil whether he would follow or not. The cleanser did, hurrying to keep up with Lalli's tireless stride. "Lalli, I'm trying to fix things the only way I know how. But I need your help."

He hated this conversation. Once again, he couldn't feel sure if they were only talking about today. Or were they talking about Sweden--or did he only wish they were? He didn't know how to respond, so he didn't.

Emil went on, undeterred by his silence. "When we get to the lake, I was thinking... Do you think you could, uh, magic away the water?" Lalli stopped and gave him a disbelieving look.

"Could I  _what_?" Lalli asked, staring at Emil.

"I know. I know you hate the idea. I know you didn't even want to do it back then. But it's the best idea I've got at the moment."

_You knew then?_

It had been on the way back from Denmark. They had hit a river that they'd crossed coming south, but on the return they had come at it in a completely different area. As he scouted ahead, Lalli had run as far east and west as he could, searching for Old World bridges or even a spot shallow enough for the tank to ford. He hadn't wanted to return to the tank without an answer, but as he'd gone farther and farther from the crew, he'd known he had no choice. He had to give up and turn back. By the time he had rejoined the tank, it had already been parked at the side of the river and the remaining crew waiting for him to tell them what to do.

Emil had been standing outside of the tank, of course. His face had broken into a tired smile of relief when he saw Lalli, as it always did. It had been too much--and maybe Emil had seen that, because he had hurried to Lalli and wrapped his arms around him. He had been murmuring something into Lalli's ear and the only words that Lalli had been able to pick out of the stream of Swedish in those days were _It's okay_. He hadn't known what was supposed to be okay, though. Was he trying to reassure Lalli that they would find some way across the river? Or was Emil just reassuring himself that everything was okay now that Lalli was back? 

Lalli remembered standing at the edge of the water with Emil's arms around him and thinking: Could he leave them there for the day, or maybe even longer, to try to find a better place to cross the river? Could he leave Emil alone to guard the other two, with no one to warn him of coming danger and no one to watch his back? Could he leave Emil at all, when he had become the only thing keeping Lalli together each day?

He had decided that he couldn't, and so he had stepped into the river and begged his gods to see him from all this distance. They had responded, parting the waters for him and allowing the tank to trundle along the riverbed to reach safety. Lalli had been shaking so badly by the time they got to the other bank that Emil had sat him down to the rear of the tank, brushing Lalli's hair back out of his face and holding his own canteen up to Lalli's mouth to get him to drink some water.

"I know this isn't what your gods are for, but I also know my people." Emil's voice brought him back to the present. Lalli wondered what he would would have learned if he'd been able to understand all the words Emil had spoken into his hair that long ago day. "The others aren't going to believe in mages or what mages can do unless they see it for themselves." Emil tried for a sheepish smile. "You know I didn't."

The rest of the group was catching up, so Lalli began walking again, mulling the idea over in his mind. He was stronger than he had been in those days; stronger because of the experience he had gained in the past several years and because he wasn't half starved and sleep deprived and overworked to the point of breakdown. Plus, his connection to the gods was far stronger here in the heart of Finland. It shouldn't be nearly as much of a strain from that point of view--but it was also a body of water magnitudes larger than that small river in Denmark. The risk might still be just as great as it had been then.

Emil kept speaking as they walked through the forest of narrow birches. "I know what you're capable of, Lalli, and it's absolutely amazing. I don't want to push you if you think it's dangerous, but if my lieutenants see what you can do, I can more or less promise that they'll listen to their mages. And they'll make sure their troops do, too."

The argument seemed to leave Lalli with little choice. Emil might be right that something extreme would be needed to get the Swedes in line. Even Emil hadn't believed at all until he'd witnessed Lalli driving back the monsters stalking them in Denmark and there had been no other possible way to explain the things that he'd seen other than magic. Perhaps it was time for a dramatic gesture.

 

 

Lalli stepped up to the edge of the water, looking down at the toes of his mud-caked boots. Tiny waves lapped at them, reaching out to swallow him up. He knew these waters, though. He had grown up amid the lakes, after all. _Who would be best to call on?_ He shuffled through the possibilities. Vedenemo was strongest here, in the heart of old Karelia. But she was a fickle goddess. He didn't want to put his life in her hands, let alone the lives of these other people. But if he chose someone else over her, she might bring her wrath down upon him. Would Vellamo be enough to keep her at a distance? He hoped he was right to believe that she was.

He could feel Emil's eyes on him. He knew that all of the eyes were on him, but it was only Emil's that he was conscious of. He took a careful breath, then began to incant.

" _Vellamo, mighty mother of the waters,_

_cradle us in your calm embrace._

_Call your winds to hold the waters,_

_so we can look upon your face._

_Mother greatest, show your mercy_

_and let us walk within your grace."_

He brought his hands down and out, as though he were brushing dust from the front of his light tunic, and the water drew back like a living thing. Lalli walked forward into the river and the water continued to roll back away from him as if it was being repelled by some invisible force--which it was, in a way.

"Holy shit."

The whispered exclamation came from one of the Swedes behind him, and Lalli allowed his lip to curl up slightly, since none of them could see his face anyway. _Vellamo, let's show them what you can do_ _._

He held the power firm and forced it out in a wider sphere, pushing the water back another meter on each side--and then another. Once he stood in a circle of drained river sludge nearly five meters across, he turned and looked back at the small crowd still standing on the grassy shore. Emil stepped away from the crowd and strode into the riverbed to where he stood. "Should we have a look around then? Lead the way, Lalli."

They walked forward into the broad expanse, the water continuing to steadily retreat in response to each step they took toward the Pamilo side. Emil muttered under his breath, "How long can you keep this up?"

"Long enough. Just don't expect me to talk much."

Emil's eyes were warm as he looked at Lalli. "Give me a sign if you're reaching your limit." Then he turned and called back to Tuuri, "Won't your engineer want to have a look at the riverbed?"

The rest of the group walked hesitantly out into the mud that normally lay at the bottom of the broad inlet. Even the Finns out of Eno looked uneasy; not many civilians were ever in the position to see a mage wield powers like this. They crept out across the mud, looking curiously at the water that was being held back by nothing at all. Nothing but Lalli and the gods he served.

Tuuri jogged forward to help translate. Most of the talking was done in Finnish, so she stood near Emil and his lieutenants so that she could provide a running summary of what was being discussed. Occasionally Emil would ask a question or look at one of the other Swedes he had brought along. The man wasn't one of the lieutenants. When he finally started asking questions himself, it was clear that he had some experience with engineering himself.

Lalli stood in the middle of the inlet, mud oozing up around his ankles, and held back the water as the rest of the group looked around and examined the ground. Someone ran back to the shore to find a piece of bleached driftwood, carrying it back to dig into the sludge a foot or so. Lalli paid less and less attention as he felt himself slowly losing body heat, as though he truly were standing at the bottom of the lake that should normally have occupied this space. He was so completely focused on his own task that he didn't even notice Emil coming back to his side until the Swede put a hand on his shoulder. It startled him so badly that the water sloshed a few feet closer. Lalli gave Emil a wild look.

Emil snatched the offending hand back, holding both his palms up in gesture of surrender. He gave Lalli a long look. Then he gave a small nod and turned back to the group to say, "I'd say we learned what we came here to learn. Now we just have to come to a decision--but we also need to get back to the camp before evening falls. Should we head back for now, and talk it out over dinner?"

No one disagreed. It was still a two-hour walk back to the camp if they didn't hurry, and well over an hour even if they did. The bloated sun was hanging low over the horizon. Fighting to keep their feet from being sucked into the swampy ground, the group struggled back to the shore. Lalli shuffled along at the end of odd group, and Emil walked beside him. Tuuri gave them a concerned look, but she needn't have worried. Lalli was too tired even to pick fights with Emil at the moment. He had held the spell too long. Every thought in his head was of keeping the waters from rushing back over them all as he let the two sides of the river slowly flow back together in his wake.

"Are you going to be okay making it back to the camp?" Emil asked under his breath.

"I have to be."

Emil's eyes studied the landscape ahead of them. "Do you also 'have to' take point?"

"Do you see any other scouts here?"

Emil exhaled noisily, not quite a snort or a sigh. "You should have told me earlier if you were getting tired." Lalli didn't disagree. He probably should have. He'd been focusing so intensely that even he hadn't fully realized how much it was taking out of him, and now the exhaustion was hitting him like someone had dropped a bag of rocks on his shoulders. He would have to make it back to the camp on sheer bloody-minded willpower, because he had nothing else left in him.

"I'm staying with you. If it's too much, you tell me. I'll make an excuse--say I have to stop and rest. They already think I'm useless."

_No, they don't._ Lalli didn't like recognizing it--as though even acknowledging Emil's good points was a betrayal of his intention to stop loving him--but Emil really wasn't that bad at this. He wasn't perfect, as he had proved that afternoon by alienating practically every mage on the project, but he wasn't a captain solely because he also happened to be Emil Västerström of the Silent World expedition. He had good ideas and asked the right questions and steered the group in the direction he wanted to go without making it seem like he was giving orders or making demands. He also seemed to get along with most of the cleansers underneath him, with a friendly banter that reminded Lalli more than a little of Sigrun Eide.

Lalli stepped back amid the marshy grasses and let the last of the water wash back onto the shore. The small crowd parted to let him go through to the front. The Swedes' eyes were still showing a bit of white, and he didn't mind that. What he did mind was the way that Emil kept walking at his side as he gestured the group onward. He decided they would walk back under the powerlines. They led straight back to the old highway leading out of Eno and following them required no thought whatsoever, which was exactly what Lalli was looking for at that moment.

"I shouldn't have asked you to do it," Emil murmured as they paced onward, a few meters ahead of the others. The Finns were in a clump, discussing the bridge amongst themselves. The Swedish contingent hung even further back behind them. 

"It was effective, though," Lalli muttered back. The sceptical Swedish cleansers might have denied magic until their dying breath unless they saw something undeniable. Emil had been the same. Demonstrating with something that couldn't be faked and could not be explained away probably _was_ the quickest way to get them to accept the way things were done in Finland. He wouldn't have done it if he hadn't agreed.

Emil snorted. "You should have seen their faces, Lalli. I know you had more important things to focus on, but--you should have seen it. They looked so dumbfounded that they would have made Reynir look like a genius standing next to them."

"Reynir could make a rock look smart," Lalli grumbled. "I hope the people you have working under you aren't that inept."

This time Emil actually laughed. He gave Lalli an appreciative look. "I'm not sure that was work related," he pointed out.

"And I didn't think you liked to talk about the expedition," Lalli returned sourly. The truth was that he needed the conversion right now more than he needed to keep his distance from Emil. Every word was like a lifeline and he was clinging to them with all the presence of mind he had left. He had to keep his focus wrapped around this distraction or else he would have to think about how absolutely exhausted he was. If he let himself feel it, he wasn't sure he would be able to make it the nearly ten kilometers back to the camp.

"You're right. I didn't. But things can change."

Lalli worried briefly that Emil was going to push the conversation into territory that he simply couldn't take right now. His voice had been heavy with implied meaning. But the next time he spoke, it was back to his usual casual tone. "So, do  _you_ think the bridge is a good idea?"

Lalli shrugged. "If you can build something that long that actually floats."

"It's definitely possible. I know they used to have floating bridges in the Old World that even cars could drive over." Emil put his hands behind his head as he walked. "I just don't know how they made them."

"Would you have a wall around the bridge? To keep beasts out of the corridor?" Lalli didn't actually care that much about the details, but he had to keep Emil talking. He almost stumbled, but caught himself before anyone hopefully noticed.

Emil gave him a look that said he'd noticed. But he didn't say anything, just like he wasn't using Lalli's weakness to insist on talking about December. Instead he mused aloud, "That's a good point. The area around the inlet is more marshy than I expected, so it's not like we could just build a wall up to the edge of the shore." Lalli gave a vague hum in response to keep him talking. "I guess we would probably have to start the bridge way back on solid ground, and maybe build some kind of walls into it starting from there..."

Lalli kept asking the obvious questions to keep Emil talking. They talked about how high walls would need to be to provide protection and how much more wood it might take. They speculated how long a wood bridge might last, and what could it could be treated with to make it last longer. Emil asked about the settlements he'd seen on the map around Koitere, the lake northeast of the Pamilo power plant. Lalli told him what he knew of the place.

The sun was setting, but it should have still been warm. Yet Lalli felt chilled in his light tunic and his arms hugged his own waist. Emil gave up on the safe talk long enough to quietly ask, "How are you doing?"

"Fine."

Emil sighed, sounding resigned. "How much farther is it?"

Lalli pictured the map in his head, pinpointing where they were along the route. "We've made good progress. Another two kilometers maybe, or a bit more." Even thinking about the exact number and knowing how many steps still waited between him and rest made it hard for Lalli to keep lifting his feet. He said, "So, what else do you know about Old World bridges?"

"Lalli..." Emil said his name in a pained voice that was no louder than the rustling of the brush they walked through. "Please. Let me tell them to stop."

"We're losing the light." There was nothing more to say than that. "Now tell me about bridges."

  

 

There was almost no light left by the time they passed back through the gate into the safety of the camp. Lalli veered off, lifting a hand briefly as he forced himself to walk and not stagger off to his tent. Emil came after him. "You'll be okay on your own?"

"Yes."

Emil didn't try to stop him, but walked beside him for several steps. "Thank you again, Lalli."

Lalli nodded, but didn't stop walking. "You have a meeting to attend. Convince them to build your bridge."

"But you..."

"I did my job. Now it's time you did yours."

Lalli was too tired for anything more. He staggered off to find his bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3...


	16. No Name #1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _You don't belong here_  
>  _And when I go_  
>  _Don't you follow_  
>  _Leave alone_  
>  \- No name #1, Elliot Smith

**16**

 

"You're famous, you know."

Lalli looked up at Tuuri as she slid a cup of hot tea onto the table and sat herself beside him. "What are you talking about?" he asked shortly. They were at the headquarters in Eno. He'd been sent over like an errand boy by Teemu. It made a sort of sense--he was fast, and as a mage and a scout, he was probably the most reliable person to send alone across the cleared land in the pre-dawn gloom--but that didn't mean he had to be happy about it.

Tuuri smiled at him. "Your performance at Luhtapohjanjoki. It's been making the rounds among the Swedish cleansers, from what I've overheard. I believe the word that is being bandied around is 'badass.'"

Lalli snorted, dismissing her gleeful amusement with a flap of his hand as he studied the map in front of him. Tuuri nudged his shoulder with her own. "Oh, come on, Lalli. You're not even a little bit glad to have shut them up?"

He couldn't deny that there had been a change. He had been exhausted the day before, even after 11 hours of sleep, but he had noticed the difference in the Swedish cleansers assigned to his flank. Where he had gotten no more than curious glances on the first day of work, he had become the subject of outright staring and a fair amount of whispering on the project's second day.

"I'm glad if it means the project will go smoothly."

Tuuri took a sip of her tea and then hissed through her teeth, putting down the scalding beverage again. Lalli cocked an eyebrow at her, and she told him, "Oh, shut up. A brilliant mage never burns his tongue on tea, is that it?"

He gave her a hint of a smile. "Yes, that's it."

"Well, at any rate, I'll be glad to see them finally show you a bit of the respect you deserve."

It was true that the Swedes had seemed to struggle with knowing what to make of the Finnish mages. The four serving on this project were part of the military, just like the cleansers, but each one came from a different area. Until joining the project in March, Eino had worked as a day scout and was barely out of training. Tuomas normally worked in the skald's office rather than in the field, which explained his knowledge of Icelandic and his constant griping about the conditions in the camp. Suvi was the only one of them who actually belonged solely to the mage's division and didn't hold any other position, though she had been a hunter when she was younger. Even Lalli was still technically enlisted as a night scout, though he'd been working days for years.

Suvi was the only one of them who was a commissioned officer. But while rank was one thing, but being able to communicate with nature and the gods themselves--well, any Finn knew what that meant. Even a head cleanser like Teemu would listen to Lalli's advice if it were a question of nature's madness. Those who lacked a keen sensitivity to the world of spirits listened to those who could claim one--if they wanted to stay safe, that is. It was little surprise to any of the Finnish members of the project to see Lalli working alongside Teemu or interfacing with the Swedish captain. But some of the Swedes had been different.

"You and Emil seemed to be talking as well," Tuuri pointed out in a voice that was too neutral to mean nothing.

Lalli began rolling up the maps again. He hadn't needed that reminder. For an hour on that walk, he had let himself be pulled back into Emil's rhythm willingly because he hadn't seen any other way to make it through the long trek back to the camp. And Emil had been exactly what Lalli had needed him to be. He hadn't pushed. He hadn't brought up their past. He had kept the conversation easy and professional, and he had saved Lalli from embarrassing himself in front of the people he would have to work with for the next six and a half months. And then he had let Lalli go.

They hadn't exchanged so much as a word in the day that followed. He had seen Emil at a distance during the lunch break and caught a glimpse of him during the evening meal when Lalli had ducked through the line just long enough to scrounge some food that he could take back to his own tent to eat in peace. He thought Emil had seen him, but the Swede hadn't made any effort to approach him or even catch his eye.

 _Which is exactly what you wanted_ , he reminded himself. Everything was going perfectly. He should be glad that his slip up hadn't changed anything. There was no need for he and Emil to say a word to one another outside of the scope of their jobs. And Emil was working in a different area. Now that Lalli had done his part for the bridge discussions and Tuuri could be counted on to interpret in most situations, he might never have to speak with Emil again.

He didn't know if he was trying to scold or comfort himself, but either way the words rang hollow. All the more so when Emil came walking straight into his zone an hour after he had said good-bye to Tuuri, when work was scheduled to begin for the day.

"What are you doing here?" Lalli demanded as Emil dropped a heavy bag of equipment to the ground.

Rotating his shoulder as he stretched, Emil looked at him in puzzlement. "What do you mean?"

Lalli didn't want to say out loud that he'd assumed Emil was staying with the northern flank, where Lalli had found him ignoring his mage's orders two days prior. But perhaps his face gave him away, because Emil explained, "I move every day to keep an eye on how things are going with all the units. So I'm afraid you're stuck with me every few days. I'll try to keep out of your hair, though." Somehow his smile didn't reach his eyes this morning, and they had dark circles under them again--even worse than the first day that Lalli had seen him get off the boat from Pori.

Frowning, Lalli studied Emil's face. Emil had looked a bit haggard the previous day when Lalli had seen him from a distance, but now it looked as though he might not have slept since his first night in Eno. _Are you okay?_ He thought the words but didn't say them aloud.

The other cleansers were arriving, and Emil ducked down to hoist his bag up again. "Don't worry. You won't even know I'm here."

That was what Emil promised before he walked away to join his troops. But he couldn't have been more wrong. Even when Emil wasn't trying to talk to him, Lalli's ears were constantly on alert for his voice among the chatter. He heard Emil shouting orders from time to time. He heard him joking with some of his troops. He caught glimpses of his golden blond hair glinting in the sun from the corner of his eye as he stood at the edge of the ever-widening field of debris and scanned for danger.

By the end of the day, Lalli was feeling nearly as exhausted as he had been on the way back from the inlet, despite doing little more than standing on watch and keeping up a steady stream of prayers to discourage beasts and trolls from approaching. But Emil walked away without another word to him, only catching his eye briefly and lifting his chin in brief acknowledgment as he turned away and walked with his men and women back to the camp.

Though he felt worn to the bone, Lalli stayed around the open mess where everyone ate that night. He still didn't bother sitting at one of the rough tables that had been slapped together for the project, but he stood by the food line and watched over the scene as he spooned stew from the bowl he held in his hand.

Emil moved around among the Swedish units throughout the meal. He carried his food from one table to the next, stopping by to talk with different groups as his bowl moved with him, never seeming to get any emptier. Lalli snagged a piece of hard bread from the food station and slowly nibbled away at an edge of it as he watched the way that Emil interacted with the Swedish troops. The youngest ones mostly seemed awestruck, talking eagerly and laughing more boisterously than was necessary. Emil's smile looked more strained around these ones--to Lalli's eyes at least.

When he watched Emil stopping by the tables of the older cleansers, though, it was a somewhat different story. The first two such tables that he watched Emil visit acted coolly polite. Emil made small talk and nodded along to whatever the cleansers were saying and moved along as soon as he seemed able to. Then he arrived at Eva's table. Lalli had learned Eva's name because it was good to know your enemies. She was one of the two lieutenants who was always assigned to his area, and she most definitely had not warmed up to him after their brief interaction on the first day that work had begun.

Lalli's eyes narrowed as he watched the woman clearly complaining to Emil about something. Emil set his bowl of untouched food down, putting both palms flat on the table as he leaned over it and listened attentively to whatever she was saying. The line of his back, the way his shoulders hiked up, the straight line of his mouth--everything about the scene told Lalli that Emil was miserable. Not just annoyed to have to put up with an unpleasant coworker, but miserable. He pushed away from the post he'd been leaning against and started walking.

Emil looked up and noticed him when he was just a few feet away, probably catching the movement in his peripheral vision. His face slackened in surprise and his shoulders slumped, losing some of that terrible tension. Lalli didn't look at any of the people at the table. He said in a bored tone, "Teemu would like to speak with you--if you're available?"

Straightening up, Emil stepped away from the table. "Of course. I can come now."

Lalli nodded to the bowl that the captain had left on the tabletop as he moved away. "You might want to bring that. It could take a while."

Emil followed his gaze to the dish, looking at it as if he didn't even recognize it before he picked it up. Lalli turned and began walking, and Emil followed.

"Is there a problem with the plans for tomorrow?" Emil asked as they headed past the tables and toward the tents.

"No, there's just a problem with that woman." Lalli glanced at Emil and saw that the Swede was gaping at him in shock. "What? You must know she hates you."

Emil burst into helpless laughter and Lalli had to quickly grab the bowl of cold stew from his hand before he tipped it over. Emil doubled over for a moment, his hands on his knees. "Teemu--Teemu doesn't really want to see me, does he?" he asked between gasps.

"He might," Lalli said with a shrug. "Do you want me to try to find him so that you can ask him?" Emil shook his head. Lalli handed him back his bowl and said, "Good. Then eat that. You look like shit."

A different kind of surprise filled Emil's face then, and something about the way that the Swede couldn't seem to believe that he would look after him like this made Lalli's heart clench painfully. Was it so unexpected to Emil that he might still care if he was tired or if he took care of himself? He felt like he'd taken a wrong turning somewhere. But what else could he have done if he was supposed to stop loving Emil? What did his gods really want of him? If he didn't understand, if he didn't follow the path that they wanted him to, it would only end in pain. He'd learned that lesson early in life. He couldn't get this wrong.

Emil mechanically spooned the cold, thick stew into his mouth as they walked among the tents of the large camp. "You know," he said, speaking between mouthfuls, "Eva is not exactly your biggest fan either." He gave Lalli a sidelong glance. "You're her favorite topic to complain about."

"I couldn't care less." Lalli didn't slow his pace as he took Emil through the turnings, cutting a zigzag through the tents to take the shortest path. Emil didn't seem to realize where it was that they were going until they made it to right row and were walking down amid the many tents toward his own one.

"Lalli, what...?"

Lalli stopped outside of Emil's tent and gestured toward the bowl the Swede was still carrying. "Drink down the last of that, then give it to me. I'll take it back to the cooks to get cleaned."

Emil obeyed without a word, tipping the bowl up and drinking down what remained of it as Lalli watched his exposed throat with hooded eyes. "Good," Lalli said, holding his hand out for the bowl once Emil was finished. "Then sleep. You look like you haven't slept in days."

They were alone out amid the tents. Most of the cleansers wouldn't sleep for hours yet, though it was already dark. "Consider us even for Monday," Lalli said. "And get some sleep."

"I..." Emil seemed to be struggling with the words, unable to get them out of his mouth. "Lalli, I just..." His eyes searched Lalli's face as they stood outside his tent. But when he finally managed to string together the words, his voice was light once more. "Well, I'm just not sure this is work related."

"It is," Lalli said in a tone that brooked no arguments. "Lack of sleep leads to sloppiness, and that leads to accidents. Don't mess up my project, Emil."

 

 

The next day, Emil was back to working with the north flank and Lalli only caught a few glimpses of him across the camp. But he thought that the other man looked like he had slept at last. Despite the misgivings he still had about interfering, that fact alone reassured him that he had done the right thing. He only hoped that the gods would agree.

 

 

It was the second Friday in April, and Lalli's control was fraying. It shouldn't be. Things were going perfectly. They'd managed to clear nearly two kilometers of the road in three weeks, which was good progress, and the walls were going up from Eno's gate to the first kilometer marker. Teemu had boasted to Lalli how impressed all the Swedes were, clapping him proudly on the shoulder one evening. Apparently progress was slower when it came to cleansing in Sweden, since they didn't employ mages to help keep away the majority of threats. It was much more common for them, Teemu confided in Lalli, to have their work interrupted by a bad attack. Here in Eno, they'd had only a handful of encounters with beasts so far and not a single injury thanks to the mages' advance warnings.

No, the reason for Lalli's trouble was currently standing a dozen meters from him, and the problem with Emil was that there was no problem with Emil. Every three days he rotated through Lalli's area. Each time he did so, he stopped by to say hello. They would exchange a few lines about the project. Emil would share tidbits about what was going on in the other flanks. Lalli would mostly just listen and nod along. Emil might wander by once or twice more during the day, just to check if there were any signs of beasts or trolls, or to ask if Lalli knew what might be on the menu for dinner that day. Some days Emil looked ragged and like he had not slept, and others he was fine.

Yet every time that he came by, he stayed perfectly within the boundaries that Lalli had set. He sought Lalli out to chat, but kept the topics entirely on the project. He never asked anything that could be considered personal. He never asked about Lalli or brought up their history, either recent or ancient. He did nothing that Lalli could legitimately be upset about. That fact made Lalli all the more upset.

Lalli remembered when he had been nineteen, in the first month of the expedition, and he had thrown a bowl of soup in Emil's face in a fit of pique. He had tried clinging to his anger, but Emil had simply made himself constantly  _around_. He had positioned himself beside Lalli whenever possible, not pushing but never letting Lalli forget that he was there, until Lalli was ready to face him once again. Was that what was going on here? Had Emil really gotten himself sent to Finland for seven months hoping that simply being around would wear Lalli down into forgiving him? Lalli was afraid it might be working.

He wished he knew what he was supposed to do. He wished he understood what was expected of him. All his life, even when he had thought he knew the answers, they so often ended up being the wrong ones. What did Emil want from him? What did the gods want from him? What was the answer that would keep him from having to break his own heart once again?

"So, no time off for anyone this weekend, huh?"

The question came out of nowhere, and Lalli slowly turned to look at Emil. The Swedish captain was sweating through his shirt and leaning on a square-pointed shovel. Today he was helping dig post holes for the new walls. They would be moving camp to a spot two kilometers out from Eno over the next two days. It would be the first a several such moves. It was a lot of work, but the further they went, the less sense it made to track all the way back to the town walls for each meal and every night. Plus, they would leave a few of the camps intact when they were done with them, so that they could provide safe resting spots along the corridor in the future.

Emil pulled his shirt away from his back, flapping it to let some fresh air in to cool his skin. "Not that I've ever seen you get a day off. Do they just work you mages to death?" he asked.

Lalli eyed him. "Mages are always needed in the field." The cleansers had a slightly more forgiving schedule. The units all worked four days on and one day off. Their schedules were staggered so that only one or two units were off a time, and after each break, they were generally assigned a new task. They might chop trees one week, build fences the next, then clear brush after that. Teemu thought the variety kept them from getting disgruntled too quickly. But Lalli's job never changed.

"Must be hard on your boyfriend."

The words froze Lalli where he stood. _My boyfriend?_  

"Sorry," Emil said, not sounding at all sorry. "Was that not work related?"

He got a sharp look in return for his boldness. "No," Lalli assured him. "It was not."

Nodding his head absently, Emil rubbed the back on one hand under his chin. "So, is it hard on him? Or is he here working in Eno, too?"

The other cleansers were working and chatting, and the constant chorus of axes striking wood and shovels chopping into the soil filled the silence that was left when Lalli pressed his lips tightly together.

He hadn't been thinking when he had told Emil that he had someone in his life. He hadn't even remembered Aaku existed in that moment. He had only been thinking about how much he hated seeing Emil with his girlfriend and hoping that Emil would be bothered, even in some small way, if he heard that Lalli was not alone.

Aaku wasn't a boyfriend, though. He was someone Lalli went to when he had a physical urge that needed attending to, just as Aaku did with him. There were no obligations; there was almost no interaction at all when not between the sheets. Which was why Aaku had lasted as Lalli's lover as long as he had. Aaku wanted nothing from him but what he offered in bed, and Lalli felt exactly the same about him.

"If he's here, then I guess you might still get to spend a fair amount of time together," Emil mused, still not giving up with his questions. The silence wasn't working to discourage him. "Is he part of the project?"

"No," Lalli said at last.

"He's not?" Emil whistled under his breath. Did his smile look a bit forced, or did Lalli only wish that it did? "That sounds tough."

"He doesn't mind." That was true, at least. Lalli had only seen his "boyfriend" twice in the three months he'd been back in Keuruu. In January, Aaku had shown up at Lalli's door unannounced one evening, and Lalli had let him in. But by the time they had gotten to undressing, Lalli had changed his mind. He had sent Aaku away, then he had sat alone on the floor, his back against the edge of his bed. He had wondered if the reason he had driven the other man out truly was because he couldn't bear to let anyone else's hands wipe away the last traces of Emil's skin on his, and he had hated himself.

Lalli had stopped by Aaku's quarters just once since then, leaning on the doorjamb as he told the other mage that he would be joining this project and gone for the rest of the year. It only seemed polite to let him know. Aaku had smiled his mocking half-smile and said, "Don't get eaten by anything." That had been all they needed to go their separate ways.

Emil's pained smile stayed fixed in place, and Lalli wanted to run away from it--but he couldn't leave his position. Why did Emil have to look so unhappy? Why did he have to keep breathing new life into the wants that Lalli was trying to give up? "Just...stick to talking about work, Emil," he said at last, and the words came out more like a plea than the reprimand he had meant them to be. "That's all we have now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2...


	17. The Biggest Lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Oh, we're so very precious, you and I_  
>  _And everything that you do makes me want to die_  
>  _Oh, I just told the biggest lie_  
>  _I just told the biggest lie_  
>  \- The Biggest Lie, Elliot Smith

17

 

For nearly two weeks, Emil kept his distance. He offered passing greetings to Lalli whenever he worked in his zone, but nothing more. He didn't try to make conversation, even about the project. Lalli kept to himself during meals and breaks. But it was already too late. Lalli had tried to drown his confused feelings in the deep pool within his mind, but they wouldn't stay quiet beneath the water. They broke the surface and the waves rocked him, interfering with his focus and his work. It was a distraction he couldn't afford.

Every moment that he wasn't praying to keep monsters away from the site, he was praying to the gods for some kind of clear sign: some indication that he was reading their wishes correctly and that keeping Emil at a distance was what they wanted. But there was no sign. Emil's brief greetings started getting longer, and they turned into hesitant questions once more. And Lalli asked his gods for guidance, but they were silent. And Emil began drifting to Lalli each time he took a water break during the hot days of May. He ended up "coincidentally" beside Lalli in line for food at meals. He invited Lalli to sit--or even just to please stand--with him and eat. And Lalli asked his gods for answers. And they were silent.

Emil had given up on "business talk" altogether by the time June arrived in Eno. He asked Lalli about which of the foods he liked best among the things they were fed in camp; he asked about growing up in Saimaa and how the town he had lived in as a boy compared to Eno; he asked whether Lalli preferred the summer to the winter, and which was his favorite season. And when Lalli answered, the sky didn't fall down. The gods didn't rain their wrath down upon either of them for talking. Lalli's fragile grip on his own emotions slipped further and further.

  

 

A gore-covered skull banged against Lalli's leg and he grimaced.  _Well, that was stupid_ , he thought as he looked down at the bloody smear on his pant leg. His first finger and thumb were each hooked through an empty eye socket as he carried his grisly souvenirs back toward the camp. He would need to find a suitable tree that could serve as a kallohonka later. Maybe he should just ask one of the mages that lived in Eno. They could handle such a routine task--but Lalli was inclined to take care of it himself. He looked down at the pair of skulls again.

Lalli had tried to drive the beasts back, but they hadn't been turned away by his prayers alone. So Lalli had drawn his knife and warned the cleansers to stay where it was safe. A fair number of the Finnish cleansers, happy for the excuse to fight, had stuck around to take care of the beasts with him. One had gotten a good gash on his forehead, and another had needed to be carried back to the camp. He would be with the medics by now, but his life wasn't in any danger. He would simply need some patching up. The other cleansers who had stayed behind were all fine and walking back with him on their own feet.

And there was someone coming toward them across the ravaged land that they had spent the last few days clearing. Someone he could recognize just from the way that he walked. Lalli stopped where he was, not willing to be the one to approach. He was already guilty of not pushing Emil away, but he refused to be the one to close the distance between them. As if that excuse would be enough to appease the gods.

The blond Swede slipped between the cleansers as they passed by on their way back to the camp, and his eyes never left Lalli's face. He looked unnaturally pale beneath his summer tan, and he stopped an arm's length from where Lalli stood stock still upon the soil churned up by a dozen pairs of feet.

Lalli glanced past him at the rest of his countrymen. They were all walking on, leaving Emil and Lalli behind amid the stumps. "What are you doing here, Emil?" he asked tonelessly. He was tired. He shouldn't have had to face Emil again until the next day. Today was still one of his two days free from the uncertainty and the sweet misery of working and talking with Emil.

"I heard there was an attack on this side. That there were injuries." Emil swallowed hard, his eyes sliding over Lalli and arriving at the pair of skulls dangling from his hand.

"And you left your units and came rushing over here--why? Out of worry for me?"

"Pretty much, yeah." Emil laughed shakily. He was still holding himself away, but Lalli knew what Emil wanted. They had been through this so many times in Denmark. Gods, how he wanted to just let Emil grab him. He could lean into Emil now and he knew that Emil wouldn't hesitate to wrap those thick arms around him, holding him up and giving him a place to be safe and where he wouldn't have to stand alone on his own two feet. He swayed on the spot, his body nearly betraying him. Could he do it? Would the gods see him as weak? What punishment could be worse than this?

_You know_. The cool voice cut through his mind, sharp as a honed knife's edge.  _You know exactly how much worse things can get._

Emil took a small step forward, standing closer than could be considered necessary by anyone's standards. Lalli closed his eyes and he could feel Emil's breath when he exhaled heavily. "It's stupid, right?" Emil said wryly. "You must have been in danger a thousand times since the expedition. Even since December. But I didn't  _know_ then. Not for sure. But like this... Knowing that you might get hurt right here, right where I could have done something to stop it, it's--it's unbearable."

_Unbearable._ That was indeed the word. It had become unbearable to be together with Emil like this, and unbearable to imagine never seeing him again after this project. Lalli had thought December had been bad, but that had been only a few days. Hours stolen in a foreign land that might as well have been a dream. Now he'd had two months with Emil. Two months in his own homeland, among his own people, living and eating and working together day in and day out. It had been long enough to find out that Emil didn't like pea soup, but had a weakness for _vispipuuro_. Long enough to learn that Emil liked to read books in his spare time, but only the ones he chose and never non-fiction. Long enough to notice that he almost always missed the same patch of hair under his jaw when he shaved. Long enough to notice that he looked horrible some days and fine others, and to hear the rumors about violent nightmares being the reason he did not share a tent with anyone, unlike most everyone else in the camp.

"Why are you here, Emil?" Lalli asked in a thin voice. He hated how thin it was.

The Swede shook his head helplessly. "It was all I could do not to run over here the moment I heard. I had to see that you were okay."

Lalli's bloody fingers clenched at the skulls in his hand. "No, not why are you here on the front. Why are you here at all? In Finland?"

"I missed you," Emil said without hesitation, as if he had been expecting the question for the past two months. The simple admission fell from his lips like it was the most natural thing in the world to say. It wasn't natural to Lalli, though. You didn't just _say_  things like that. Things that made you sound vulnerable. Weak. The hollow feeling in Lalli's chest expanded, forcing the air out of his lungs and into his throat, where it seemed to be choking him with a terrible tightness. Emil went on, "I didn't want it be another four years before we met this time. I thought there was a chance you might join this project. Even if you didn't, I figured I might be able to get a day off and visit Keuruu." 

Lalli ignored all messages that his brain was trying to send him and responded with facts instead. "Do you know how long it takes to get from here to Keuruu?"

"No. How long?"

"Two days. Each way."

"Oh." Emil shuffled awkwardly. "Well, I'm even more glad that you turned out to be on the project, too, in that case." Emil's eyes searched his. "I needed to see you again. I want to fix things between us. I know you don't like to talk about it, but that's the truth."

Pressing one hand to his brow for a moment, Emil took a deep breath. He let his arm fall back to his side and said, as if each word pained him, "But if you really don't want that--if you really and truly want things to be over between us--then I'll understand. I'll stay out of your path. But you have to tell me that."

"You really are an idiot."

"I know, right?" Emil laughed and shuffled another half-step closer. There were only a few inches between them now, a thin barrier of charged air that Lalli felt even more aware of than Emil's body so close to his. Emil wasn't looking at him now, but somewhere past him into the trees. Lalli's eyes stayed fixed on the other cleansers as they grew smaller in the distance. "But I don't know if I'm an idiot for what I'm doing right now, or an idiot for all the time that I wasted the past four years."

_Don't do it. Don't lean in. Don't fail now._

Lalli leaned in, sinking against Emil's chest and dropping his head onto that broad, steady shoulder. "What do you want from me?" he asked tiredly, breathing in the sharp scent of sweat and dirt. The gods weren't answering. Would Emil? "You show up here for half a year, you act like you want something, but you're just going to leave again. You're not staying. You don't belong here. You belong back in Sweden. With _her_."

Emil grabbed him by the shoulders, pushing Lalli away to hold him at arm's length. There was a deep line etched between his brows. "With who? Do you mean--with Anna? But...I haven't seen Anna since December." 

_Since December?_

Lalli had lifted his hanging head and he stared up at Emil with burning eyes. "What do you mean?" he demanded, unable to stop himself.

"Didn't I tell you?" Emil asked hollowly, a sort of horror dawning on his face. "I thought you knew--I mean, you must have known--"

There was a moment of terrible silence as the pieces fell into place. Emil's hands slid down to grip Lalli's upper arms, keeping him from fleeing. "Lalli, I broke up with Anna before New Years. Didn't I say that? I must have said it. You really didn't know?"

Lalli shook his head from side to side, his mouth sealed shut. His thoughts were racing in circles too quickly to be put into words. They had broken up? Before Emil had come to Björköfjärden? Because of what had happened between Emil and him? Because Emil had felt so guilty? Because Emil had actually meant it when he came back to Lalli's hotel room that last night?

_I just wanted things to go back to the way they were._

_And that's why you came to my hotel room alone at nearly midnight. To make things go back to the way they were. The way things were when? The way they were last night?_

_Maybe. But I can't._

Had he meant that he couldn't-- _simply because he hadn't yet broken up with his girlfriend as he intended to do?_  Could that really be the truth? Could Emil really have come here to Finland because he finally wanted Lalli the same way that Lalli had always wanted him? Lalli couldn't take it. He ripped his arms free, backing up several steps. "I have to go," he whispered. "I can't--I have to go now."

Emil obviously wanted to protest. He reached out for Lalli once again, but Lalli couldn't be stopped. He sprang away, running as fast as the wind away from Emil and the truth and the possibilities that were now unfurling, reaching up toward the light like hungry seedlings that had escaped from the dark soil after winter's cold grip was finally broken.

 

 

Leaving his sielulintu far behind him to mark the way back to safety in eerie blue light, Lalli set out across the black water that night. "Onni!" he shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth as he dashed across submerged stones. He kept shouting the name from time to time as he ran, even more tireless in the world of dreams than he was in his waking body. Tireless did not mean patient, however. He ran on across the darkness, punctuating the silent night with his hoarse cries and occasionally feeling the hint of another mage when he passed by a haven that must have been hidden between the stars.

The gods are generous.

The gods are cruel.

The gods are absolute.

These were the lessons Lalli had been taught as a boy.  _Fate waits always in the corner; destiny finds you even across nine rivers._ He knew that it was in his gods' hands what would happen to him. He had seen others try to fight against the will of the gods. He'd watched his grandmother fight to her last breath against it. He'd seen how hopeless it was.

Wishing for something that the gods would not gift you was pointless. Ignoring the gods' lessons was reckless. It only brought pain. That was what all of his family had been forced to learn. His father, Jukka. Grandmother. Lalli himself. The Hotakainen mages had become too powerful for their own good. They had forgotten that they were servants to the gods and lived according to their whims. When Uncle Juha had disappeared, Jukka had refused to accept that his twin was gone. When Jukka did not return from his search, eight-year-old Lalli had run away in secret to look for his father. When Grandmother had refused to leave Lalli to the fate he had earned for himself, she had awoken something so terrible and vengeful that it had stalked the family for years on end.

That was what came from fighting against what the gods wanted for you. Death and grief.

Once Lalli had lived when he probably should have died. He had loved where he should not have. Every knife blade that cut into his heart now had his own hand wrapped around the hilt. He knew that. He had known it all along. But it was becoming so hard to understand what was expected of him. Was this really all just a test of his resolve? What was it the gods wanted him to do now? If he could just figure out what was expected of him, there should be less pain. He had tried all this time to understand it on his own, but Lalli was lost and growing more lost by the hour. He was lost, and he needed Onni.

"Onni, damn it! I need to talk to you!" he shouted, his feet kicking up small splashes in the still, endless ocean of night. His voice echoed out across the surface, little ripples trembling as it half-roused things better left sleeping. Lalli didn't care and he didn't stop. He didn't know what else to do anymore. He needed to talk to his teacher.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be thankful! The countdown is almost over!
> 
> 1...


	18. 2:45 AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It's 2:45 in the morning_  
>  _And I'm putting myself on warning_  
>  _For waking up in an unknown place_  
>  _With a recollection you've half erased_  
>  _Looking for somebody's arms_  
>  _To wave away past harms_  
>  \- 245 AM, Elliot Smith

**18** **  
**

 

Lalli was shaking with exhaustion by the time he felt the familiar press of Onni's space against his spirit. It was soft and prickly and slightly warm, like a wool blanket against his bare skin. His sigh of relief was so great that he almost pitched forward into the water. Instead he forced himself to walk the remaining steps to where he could feel the boundaries between this plane and Onni's thicken into a physical barrier.

Putting his hand against the invisible wall, Lalli pushed outward with this luonto, not calling it to where he stood but rather sending it through to where Onni must be. It was a trick of his own devising, which he had come up with--after much experimentation and frustration--thanks to the way that Reynir had always walked right through his own barriers. He could have tried shouting or even forcing his way through the protections around Onni's space, but this way was easier and less damaging.

Within seconds, spots of colors appeared in the space before him, coalescing into a hazy picture like a stained-glass window viewed through a thick morning mist. Then it resolved into a clear image of Onni reaching out to Lalli with an alarmed look. "What is it, Lalli? Is it Tuuri? Is something wrong in Eno?"

The predictable _normalcy_  of Onni's worry was almost enough to make Lalli's lose his grip on himself. Onni hadn't changed in these two and a half months. Lalli's life might have become a storm of confusion and misery and desperate wishes, but here was the voice of reason. Here was the teacher who would tell him one more time what was right and what was wrong. Everything would be all right now.

"Nothing's wrong. Nothing like that," Lalli said, as he stepped into Onni's private space and let his cousin close the barriers behind him. "I just...needed to talk to you about something."

Onni was silent for a long moment, studying Lalli with a concerned expression. "Of course. I am always here for you to talk to." He gestured Lalli forward into the dell. Lalli felt himself trembling. He wanted to blame it on how hard he had pushed himself to get here, but it wasn't true. If he wanted Onni's help, he was going to have to tell the whole sorry story. The thought terrified him.

He followed Onni across the sparsely treed hills and down to the flat rocks where they had sat and talked so many times. Normally Onni did most of the talking--or more accurately, lecturing--but not always. It had always been easier for Lalli to talk here, where no prying eyes could possibly see him.

They settled onto the smooth stone, warmed by the sun that still shone down in here despite the fact that it was night. Onni stretched his legs out before him, waiting patiently for Lalli to explain why he had come. Once he had been reassured that neither Lalli or Tuuri weren't in any sort of danger, he seemed content to let Lalli take as long as he needed.

Lalli drew his knees up against his chest. "It's about... It's about something personal."

He glanced at Onni and saw his cousins eyebrows had shot up. If Lalli ever came to Onni with questions, it was about advice for a new runo or the best way to deal with some particular beast. It was never about anything personal. Onni kept his face carefully neutral, though, as he asked, "Has something happened?"

"There was...someone." Lalli's eyes flickered to Onni and away again. "Someone in my life. Someone I wasn't able to forget for a long time."

Onni nodded, though he looked faintly confused still about why Lalli was telling him any of this. He kept his eyes on the trees across the deep water, and Lalli spoke to his own hands, laced loosely together and resting on his lap.

"We hadn't met in years. But...we met again in December. And things went badly."

"What do you mean, badly?"

"We...we hurt each other." His laced fingers squeezed together tightly now, nails pressing into his own skin. "At first it was good. Great. But in the end, all we could do was cause each other pain. I thought the gods had to be telling me to give up at last. I'd wasted years without giving up, but they had shown me the truth. We just weren't meant to be together."

He saw Onni slowly nod out of the corner of his eye. "But now?" he asked.

Lalli looked into the dark water of Onni's pond. Shapes moved occasionally in the depths, shadows of life that Lalli's eyes followed as his mind worked on how he could put this into words.

"This person--"

"You could give him a name, if you'd like," Onni suggested gently. Lalli winced. So Onni had known. Tuuri would have told him, if he hadn't figured it out on his own. Lalli wasn't sure if Onni knew that it was Emil specifically that Lalli was interested in, or just men in general, but he shook his head. He wouldn't speak Emil's name.

"He's here in Eno. He joined the project, even though he didn't have to. He volunteered."

Onni did look at him then, just for a few moments, but then he turned back away as if he'd caught himself. He said nothing as he waited for Lalli to elaborate. "I knew I had to give up on him. I know that was what the gods were telling me to do. But when he showed up again, I..." Lalli swallowed. "I realized I had failed."

When he looked at his cousin next, he saw Onni frowning and he regretted even more that he had tell all of this. Now Onni was disappointed to hear that he had failed to learn the lesson the gods had chosen to give him. He had disappointed his teacher.

"I _know_. I really thought I'd gotten over him, but when I saw him...when he talked to me..." Lalli buried his head in his arms. "It was the same as it had ever been. And he keeps trying to talk to me and I think he came here to try to fix things between us. But the gods wanted me to forget him. Didn't they? They must have." Dropping his hands, Lalli asked in a low voice, "So is this a test? Having him appear again and seem to offer everything I wanted? Or are the gods punishing me? How do you know, Onni? I don't understand what I'm supposed to do anymore."

He heard Onni take a deep breath. "Lalli..." His voice was surprisingly gentle, and Lalli flinched. _Here it comes._ "Why do you think the gods are punishing you?"

Was this a trick question? "Because I failed them?" he suggested, unsure of what Onni wanted him to say.

" _No._ " Onni said forcefully, staring at him in consternation. Lalli didn't understand the look. What was he missing? Onni took hold of him, his heavy hand weighing down on shoulder. "Lalli, what I mean is that the gods are not trying to punish you. Why would you think that they are?"

Lalli didn't understand. He shook his head mutely, eyebrows drawn low over his gray eyes. "Because I didn't learn."

"Learn what? What do you think you were supposed to learn?"

"That he could not love me."

Onni looked so sad that Lalli was afraid he might cry. Why was this happening? Why was Onni looking at him like that?

"Lalli." Onni said his name in a strained voice, his fingers digging painfully into Lalli's shoulder. "Why would you say that?"

Lalli turned away, frowning down at the water. Onni's hand dropped away. Lalli chewed on his lip, afraid now that he was going to say something wrong. This wasn't going the way he had expected. He had thought the worst part would be telling Onni that he had failed, but that Onni would then be able to show him what he was missing and point out the path that he was meant to take. Had he not explained well enough?

"We slept together," he muttered, feeling his face growing hot. This was not the kind of conversation he had with Onni. With anyone really. "But he was drunk. He hadn't meant for it to happen. He regretted it."

"He wasn't interested in that kind of relationship?"

Lalli opened his mouth, then closed it. Emil had come back the next night. He had let Lalli push him down on the bed. Emil hadn't said he didn't want to. He had said  _I can't_. "He had a girlfriend," Lalli mumbled.

Onni sat back and somewhere in the grove invisible birds called back and forth to one another. "So he blamed you for destroying his relationship? Unless you somehow forced him, I would say he shared the responsibility."

"He didn't blame me," Lalli said stubbornly. It hadn't been like that. Emil had tried talking to him, tried to explain and make excuses and apologize. "He was just sorry. He was sorry it happened. He didn't want it to ever happen."

"But then he joined this project that you are on? Did he not know you would be there?"

Lalli swallowed. "He knew. He told me that he joined the project because he thought he might see me."

Onni's frown grew deeper, lines etched into the corners of his mouth. "I'm not sure I understand."

 _Now you know how I feel._ Lalli said, "He's in front of me every day. I try to keep my distance, but he just puts himself beside me again. Is it because I'm doing something wrong? Is that why the gods are doing this to me?"

"Have you considered," Onni said slowly, "that the gods might want you to be happy?"

In the vale of Onni's dreams, Lalli felt his heart thump in his chest. He felt the pulse at his wrists, the blood rushing through his body. He stared into Onni's gray eyes, the same gray as his own but which seemed to see a world that his did not. "What are you talking about?"

His cousin put a gentle hand on his knee. "Lalli, I can't say that I understand what has happened. But it sounds to me like you still care about this person, and he cares about you enough to come seek you out purposefully. If the gods have any hand in this, perhaps they have brought him back to you to give you a chance to fix things."

"You're wrong." Lalli shook his head. "You're wrong. I was supposed to give up. I made a mistake. Mistakes can't be forgiven."

Onni flinched back, then he stared at Lalli for several moments. His voice cracked slightly when he spoke. "Lalli, why would you--did I make you think that? That the gods would punish you if you made a mistake?"

Lalli shook his head. It was true that Onni had told him often enough as a child that he could not make mistakes, but he didn't like seeing tears in Onni's eyes. "It's just a fact. You know that as well I do. My father made a mistake. Grandma made a mistake. You know what happened. Mistakes are not forgiven."

"So you think the gods _punished_ them? That Jukka died for loving his brother? That Grandma died for loving you?" Lalli shrugged helplessly, and Onni's head sagged down into his hands. "Lalli, that's not what happened! Yes, Grandma made a mistake, but it wasn't saving you! Her mistake was what she _did_ to save you. She broke the laws of our magic, and she put others in danger as a result. _That_ is what you are never to do."

Onni grabbed him in a hug before Lalli could react or get away. "I'm sorry, Lalli. I never knew that you--I didn't mean to make you--I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"I don't understand," Lalli said in a small voice.

"That's my fault, not yours." Onni pulled away and peered earnestly at him. "You were just a little kid, and I--I didn't know how to keep you safe. I didn't know how to teach you what you would need to know. But I didn't ever mean for you to..." He shook Lalli slightly, as if he needed to get his attention. He needn't have tried. Lalli was staring at him with round eyes, hanging on each word even as he doubted every last one. "I wanted you to be careful because you have people's lives in your hands. Because you risk your own life every time you leave the walls of Keuruu or any safe place. I didn't want you to ever make a mistake that resulted in lives lost. I didn't want you to have to live with that burden, and I didn't--to be honest, I didn't want our family to have any more stains upon our name. But I didn't mean for you to think that you could never make any mistake at all in _anything._ "

Then Onni pulled him back into another crushing hug. "Lalli, Grandma saved you because she loved you. That wasn't wrong. That is not what killed her." He squeezed tighter. "Whatever has happened between you and this man, if you love him--and you think that he might feel the same for you--then I can't see any reason why the gods I know would punish you for that."

Neither of them moved for a time as Onni clutched the back of Lalli's head, holding him against his shoulder. He was probably crying by now. Lalli made no sound as he tried to process what Onni had just told him.  _Onni thinks the gods aren't punishing me? This isn't a test or a lesson?_ It was hard to believe, but Onni was his teacher and mentor. He had taught Lalli everything that he knew. And more than anything, Lalli wanted to believe that Onni was right. Oh, how he wanted to believe.  _But then..._

"But then why is he back? Everything went so wrong before. Wasn't that the gods' will? Why would they bring him back now?"

Onni's laugh sounded thick with tears. "Everything is the gods' will, Lalli. If there was a reason why things went badly for you before, then there is a reason why he is back now." He smoothed a large hand over Lalli's head as he had used to do when he was just a boy. "Fate waits always in the corner," he said, repeating the adage that their grandmother had always told them.

"Destiny finds you even across nine rivers," Lalli finished. Had he misunderstood her words all these years? He'd thought she had been warning him not to try to fight his fate, but maybe it wasn't that. Maybe there  _was_ no way to fight it. Could it be that every action he took was working toward whatever destiny the gods had in mind for him? Could the pain of December have been necessary to bring Emil to him now? Had his inability to ever stop loving Emil be because he  _wasn't supposed to?_

"Onni," Lalli said quietly. "Let me go."

"I won't."

"I need to go, Onni," he insisted, pushing away as gently as he could. "Let me go."

Onni wrapped his arms tighter around Lalli's back. "No. We still need to talk about this. And I don't want you going so far back to you own space again tonight. It's too far for you to go in this state."

"I promise that I will talk to you again soon, but I'm not going back to my space." Lalli's voice was hard with determination as he said, "I'm going to wake up now." 

 

 

The stars twinkled overhead as Lalli flitted between the rows of identical tents. The June night was warm, but even if it hadn't been, he wouldn't have felt any chill on his bare arms. There was sweat prickling along his back beneath his light summer tunic. His heart pounded painfully against his ribs, so loud that he thought he could hear it in the silent night. It was well after midnight, and the entire camp was as still as death. 

Lalli's feet took him along the path without needing any input from his brain. His brain was too busy trying to figure out what it was he was doing. What was he going to say? What if Onni was wrong? But what if he was  _right_?

It took him less than five minutes to arrive outside the tent. It took him a further two minutes of standing outside it before he knelt on the ground and picked up the edge of one canvas flap in his fingers. He buried his face in his upper arm for several seconds, curled into a tight ball as though he could protect himself from emotional pain in the same way he could protect himself from physical blows. Lalli took a deep breath, his face pressed against his sleeve, then he lifted the flap and slipped inside the tent without a sound.

The canvas swung back into place behind him and within moments it was still and silent, keeping secret what he had just done. The only person who might ever know was currently asleep on a thin sleeping mat, a blanket tangled around his bare legs.

Lalli crawled further into the tent, easing his way between the debris of laundry and books. When he found a spot he could crouch in, he whispered softly, "Emil."

Emil shifted slightly, but didn't wake. Lalli repeated the name, reaching out with a foot to nudge one outflung arm, and Emil flew upright with a choked sound of surprise. Lalli could make out enough of his outline in the dark tent to see that he must be searching around wildly. "It's just me," he said in the same soft voice.

There was a sharp inhale. "Lalli?"

"Sorry. I didn't meant to alarm you. I just...needed to ask you something."

"What? Lalli, if this is about this afternoon, I swear I really thought that you knew--"

Lalli gripped his knees. He'd already come this far. He simply had to do it. "Tell me why you're here."

"I feel like I should be the one saying that," Emil tried to quip, but his voice sounded vulnerable. It sounded like something hollow and thin that Lalli could crush beneath his boot. Lalli recognized it because his entire being felt the same way at that moment. Which one of them would be the one to break, though? Could this really work without someone getting broken?

"Tell me the truth, Emil. What do you really want?"

Emil took a deep shaking breath, exhaling all at once. Lalli could hear it in the dark. "You, Lalli. I wanted you."

There was a rustle as Emil sat up straighter on the mattress and his blanket slipped away. "I know you have a boyfriend. I'm not trying to get in the way of that, but--but, yeah, actually I guess I am. I don't want you to be happy with someone else. I want you to be happy with me, because you're the only person I can imagine being happy with anymore." Lalli held himself still, unable to do anything but listen. "I thought that if I was right here in front of you, every day, maybe there was a chance that--"

"There is no boyfriend."

"What?" A hushed word in the quiet tent.

"There never was. There was a--a friend with benefits, I guess. It didn't mean anything. We haven't even met in months." Emil was silent, but Lalli could hear how uneven his breathing was. "I said that because I didn't want you to think that I was alone. Maybe I wanted it to bother you."

"It did. When I heard that Tuuri had been seeing someone, it was a surprise but I was happy for her. But I couldn't imagine you with anyone. I didn't like thinking about you with anyone." Emil pushed his blanket the rest of the way off and slowly began to scoot himself closer to Lalli. "But you haven't met in months?"

"No."

"So does that mean that you're...available?"

Lalli shrugged, though it might have been too dark for Emil to see the gesture. "I guess it does."

Emil inched closer. There was no light in the tent, no light coming in through the thick cloth. It was mostly sound and the residual heat off of Emil's body that told Lalli how close he was. The ghostly heat grew closer as Emil lifted a hand to pass it clumsily across Lalli's cheek. He tucked his fingers into the strands of hair falling loose around Lalli's right ear and Lalli could feel them shaking. He wanted to lean into that touch, but he couldn't move. He held himself perfectly still.

"Lalli, I'm so scared of screwing this up."

 _I've been scared since the moment I saw you on the shore of Lake Saimaa._ That wasn't what Lalli said aloud, though, as he tried to reassure himself as much as Emil. Instead he murmured, "The only way you could screw this up right now is by doing nothing."

The fingers stroking the shell of his ear pulled back away, as though they'd been stung. "You don't understand--I'm still such a mess--"

"You have never not been a mess, Emil." Lalli steeled his nerves and continued. "And I have never not wanted you."

Emil didn't move. It was as if he hadn't comprehended the words. His voice, when he finally did speak, sounded numb. "I don't want to hurt you."

 _You already have_. But the past wasn't going anywhere. It would still be there tomorrow. But this moment--this beautiful, fragile moment--might just slip away from Lalli and disappear if he didn't seize it with both hands right now.

"Emil. Kiss me."

"Are you sure?"

"If you ask one more question instead of doing what I tell you to do, I might leave after all."

Emil slid his other hand around Lalli's waist, knees bumping against his legs as the Swede slowly enfolded Lalli in a feather-soft embrace. He held onto Lalli as if he were made of glass and would shatter if he was jarred too suddenly. Lalli felt like he really might. "I might not let you go," Emil whispered in a husky voice.

"Then don't."

Emil leaned in and their mouths met for the first time in half a year. The kiss was as uncertain as their first kiss had not been. It wasn't a drunken and desperate struggle to seize something forbidden. This was Emil, kissing him because he wanted to and he had been wanting to. It was mutual need and desire and repressed longing. Lalli felt an odd prickling feeling behind his eyelids. At last he moved, unfurling his arms to reach out and take Emil's face in his hands.

He peppered Emil's mouth with soft kisses, pulling back after each one until Emil grew frustrated enough to hold Lalli tightly to him so that he could not escape. He dragged Lalli closer so that he was sitting sprawled on top of Emil's bare legs and where he could already feel beyond a doubt how much Emil wanted this as well. He murmured the other man's name into the kiss, and Emil groaned as though hearing his own name from Lalli was the most exquisite torture he had ever experienced.

"Lalli," Emil managed between kisses, "I don't want to do anything that you're not sure about."

"I'm the one who snuck into your tent in the middle of the night. I'm pretty sure."

Emil's hands snaked under this tunic, rucking it up as he dragged it over Lalli's head and tossed it aside. "Thank god," he groaned, pressing his face to Lalli's chest while the thin mage was straddled atop his legs. Emil kissed his way across the flat expanse, catching one small nipple in his teeth. Lalli gasped and grabbed Emil's head to pull his face up back up where he could ravage him with a kiss that was more teeth than tongue, and Emil's hands slid up and down the warm skin of his back as they consumed one another in the small field tent in the middle of the cleansers' camp.

There was no talk of what this meant or what had transpired between them before this night. All that was to be heard amid the quiet rustling were names whispered on desperate sighs. Then there were unsure questions: "Is this all right?" "Do you like that?" "Are you ready?" Their clothes mixed together, strewn carelessly around the small space and becoming indistinguishable in the dark. The low moans of pleasure that couldn't be suppressed were muffled into bare, sweaty skin. Flesh bitten down upon to keep the small cries contained. The stars were hidden by the heavy canvas stretched over their heads and sheltering them from the rest of the night, but Lalli saw them anyway: exploding like fireworks and filling the world with their glittering light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was maybe a bit rushed, but--damn it!--I promised y'all a countdown and I had to deliver. So, a big old HAH! to everyone who assumed that we were counting down to disaster. I wouldn't set you guys up like that. No, I think I prefer to drop the bombs without any warning whatsoever. :D But in the realm of bad news, the next few updates may be a bit slower than usual. :( Real life work project is about to eat my life for the next couple of months, but I'll do my best to keep things up.


	19. True Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _True love, man, it just can't be beat_  
>  _I felt so complete_  
>  _Married to heavenly bodies above_  
>  _And each night I look up_  
>  _At a bright honeymoon_  
>  _Because it sure seemed built to last_  
>  \- True Love, Elliot Smith

**18**

 

Lalli's eyes flew open. He rolled over to look at Emil, who had woken him with his tossing. The night was still pressing down heavily on the tent. They had probably only been sleeping an hour or less. Emil was mumbling to himself as he dreamed, and Lalli propped himself up on an elbow so that he could reach over and smooth his fingers across that furrowed brow. "Shhh," he whispered softly, gazing down at the man sleeping fitfully beside him.  _This is real._

Emil groaned and Lalli pinched his cheek gently. "Emil, you're dreaming."

The eyes that fluttered open looked black in the almost complete dark, but Lalli knew their color by heart. "Am I?" Emil asked in a voice still thick with sleep. "I really hope not."

Lalli felt the corner of his mouth trying to turn up. Then Emil reached up with one hand to pull Lalli's head down for a slow kiss, and he decided that was a much better use for his lips. They hadn't talked yet. He didn't know what would happen next. But he knew now that Emil wanted him just as he wanted Emil. And it might be all right.

Emil's skin was hot and smooth beneath his, and Lalli hated to pull away, but he made himself do it. Sitting up, he reached out of the blanket to find the tunic that had been thrown atop Emil's discarded things, recognizing it by the familiar feel of the cloth. When Emil realized what he was doing, he made a noise of protest.

"I should get going," Lalli said, pulling the tunic over his head. He yelped in surprise when Emil grabbed him around the waist with a strong arm and pulled him back down flat upon the thin sleeping pad.

Emil rolled on top of Lalli to pin him in place. "You should? Really? And why is that?"

He could hear the grin in Emil's voice, even if he could barely see the face above him in the dark. Lalli let a small smile curve his lips. "Because I'd rather not have to answer any questions about why I was seen leaving your tent at dawn."

"We could have been having an early morning meeting to discuss the project," Emil suggested.

"Mm-hmm," Lalli murmured in an unconvinced tone. "Which would explain why I wasn't dressed in uniform."

Emil peered down at the tunic that Lalli had pulled on, probably realizing for the first time that it was not his mage's uniform but rather civvies. "So you're telling me," he said slowly, "that if I steal some of your uniforms and keep them here that I can get you to stay all night?"

Lalli snorted, and Emil leaned down to rub their noses together. "Did I ever tell you that being able to even occasionally make you laugh may just be the one skill I'm most proud of in life?"

The ridiculousness of that statement made Lalli want to actually laugh out loud, but he refused to let Emil have the satisfaction. "Only occasionally? Maybe I've made a mistake here."

"That's what I'm trying to keep you from noticing," Emil agreed. "So don't leave now. What if you don't come back?" His teasing held a note of real vulnerability, and Lalli threaded the fingers of both hands into his hair.

"I'll keep coming back."

"Or you could just stay."

"I'll come back."

"Or stay."

Emil's voice was as serious as Lalli's by now, and he lowered himself down to bury his face in Lalli's neck. "Stay with me," he proposed, nuzzling the skin beneath Lalli's ear. "I still don't know what made you come here tonight, and I'm honestly petrified that if I let you go right now, it might never happen again."

"It's not like I'm hiding. You know where my tent is."

Emil sat up. "No, I don't. How would I know where your tent is? No one else memorizes an entire camp's layout but you, Lalli. I'm lucky if I know where the food and the latrines are." 

"I hope you don't ever get those two mistaken," Lalli said dryly.

Emil squeezed him so tightly that he almost had to protest, but then the Swede let up slightly--even as he said, "Nope, see, I don't think I can let you go now."

"I could make you."

Emil nodded against his shoulder, his chin bumping into bone. "You could. You are a scary strong mage and wield powers that I can't stand against." He put his mouth on Lalli's neck, sucking at the skin there in a way that made Lalli squirm. "But I hope that you like me too much to do that."

"Hrmph." That was Lalli's eloquent response.

Propping his forearms to either side of Lalli's head, Emil planted kisses along his cheekbones and over his eyes, forcing Lalli to close them. He leaned his forehead down against Lalli's as he said, "I don't want you to slip away and decide you regret this. I can't do that again."

Lalli felt his brow furrowing beneath the weight of Emil's head resting against his own. "Are you talking about December? That's not what happened."

Emil drew back. "Lalli. Seriously? You're going to try to tell me that's how you react when you're pleased with the way things are going? You were furious!"

 _I was ecstatic with the way things were going--until reality set in_ , Lalli thought as he turned his face away, refusing to speak. Emil kissed one corner of his frown then the other. "What is it? What are you thinking?"

Lalli thawed enough to grumble, "I was mad because  _you_ hated what happened."

"Hated it?" Emil laughed, sounding a little hysterical. "Lalli, I can't think of anything I've ever hated less. I hated _the way_ that it happened. That you were drunk and I was drunk. That I had a girlfriend. That I'd been unfaithful to her, and so being with you had to be wrong. It shouldn't have been wrong. You feel like the rightest thing in my life, and I made everything--"

Lalli kissed him to make the words stop. His heart felt like it might burst and he couldn't stand to listen to any more explanations. He couldn't bear to hear that Emil had perhaps felt the same way for months and months, and he had gone through so much pain and confusion for nothing. He kissed Emil with all the words he still couldn't say, but that he hoped Emil would be able to understand. If he couldn't, perhaps no one could, because no one else had ever seemed to understand him half as instinctively as Emil always had.

They indulged in long, sweet kisses, hands slowly exploring the bodies they were each becoming more familiar with. But in the end, Lalli still won. With Emil pleading and complaining piteously with each piece of clothing he retrieved, Lalli got himself dressed and shoed, and prepared to pass back into the night without anyone else in the camp ever needing to know that he'd been there. Emil caught his hand as he moved to go, turning it over to press a kiss into his palm. "This isn't it, right? This isn't all we get, is it?"

Lalli shook his head. "Go back to bed, and get some sleep. This is only the beginning."

 

 

When Emil found him at the work site perhaps six or seven hours later that morning, Lalli kept his face carefully neutral until the Swedish captain had stepped right up beside him. He shot a glance at Emil, who had a weak, nervy smile on his lips. "I'm stupidly afraid that last night was all a dream," Emil muttered softly, as if anyone might overhear, though the nearest person was a dozen meters away. Lalli eyed him again. Maybe he should have shown up to breakfast. Apparently his absence had been noted.

He suggested, "Would a repeat tonight reassure you?"

Emil turned to look at him with burning blue eyes. "We're surrounded by miles of uninhabited woods. Why not another repeat right now?"

Lalli's heart shuddered, tripping painfully in its steady rhythm. He reminded Emil, "I don't think your protocol allows for that."

"God, Lalli," Emil muttered, closing his eyes for the moment. "I would throw you on the ground right here and now if you'd let me."

"Good thing one of us has some restraint," Lalli pointed out, looking the captain up and down with heavy eyes. Emil groaned in misery.

"That's it. I can't stand here next to you without doing something I shouldn't. I'm going to go chop something into tiny pieces." He turned and began to walk past Lalli, one sly hand sliding across the small of Lalli's back as he went by. "And I better see you after work."

When Emil was gone and no one was left to see him, Lalli let a pleased smile slowly spread across his face. He still couldn't believe it. Had Onni truly been right? Could this have been his all along, and the only obstacle that had stood in his and Emil's way was his own mistaken beliefs? It was hard not to be nervous, despite what Onni had said. He had spent the better part of his life knowing that if he stepped out of line, he would have to pay for it. He had feared letting down his gods as much as he had ever feared letting down Onni or Tuuri. The idea that he could seize his own happiness and not have it snatched away was still foreign to him. It rubbed and scratched like a wool sweater on his skin.

Yet it was perfect. Every time he met Emil's eyes across the camp, he felt heat flooding his body and he knew from the hungry look on Emil's face that he wasn't alone in feeling that way. When work was done for the day, Emil lingered the longest so that he could walk back to the camp together with Lalli when the mage was finally free to go. They talked about how the day had gone and the progress they were making as their feet naturally fell in time to one another. As they waited in the line for dinner, Emil filled Lalli in on what had been happening on the other two flanks the past two days. He asked Lalli about what had happened with the beasts and as they stood together with their plates in hand--Lalli wasn't ready to sit at a table together with Emil and whoever might come to join him--Lalli retold how he and some of the Finnish cleansers had dealt with the two beasts that had attacked their front.

When they had both scraped their plates dry, Emil asked in a soft voice, "So...you ready to get out of here?"

He looked as earnest and hopeful as a puppy, and being able to inspire that kind of expression in Emil made Lalli almost forget his duty. But it was too well trained into him. "I have to meet with the other mages. We have a debrief every evening with Teemu and some of the others."

Emil looked surprised. He probably hadn't noticed, even after more than two months in the camp. Emil met with Teemu twice a week as well--right after this nightly meeting, in fact--but Lalli had made sure to be gone before Emil had ever shown up. Much like he'd made sure to disappear from out of Emil's line of sight any time that they didn't have to actually work together. That had been before last night, though.

"Will you come find me after you're done?" Emil asked, sticking his hands in his pockets.

Lalli looked at those hunched shoulders and wanted to pull Emil's hands back out of his pockets and tug the tension out of them. But the best he could do was reassure Emil with his words. "I'll come by."

"Soon?"

He didn't like to lie, and he knew he had no intention of walking up to Emil's tent in full daylight. "Later. After the camp is asleep."

"You're worried about people seeing? They know we work together. You could just be stopping by to discuss something."

"It's not stopping by if I'm never seen leaving."

Emil drew one hand out of his pocket as if he meant to take Lalli's arm, but then he gave up on the gesture and tucked the hand away again. "The sun doesn't set till 11 these days," he pointed out. "You're not going to get much sleep if you have to keep sneaking around in the middle of the night. Wouldn't it be easier to just come earlier? No one else is going to pay attention to when you come or go."

He could spend the whole evening with Emil, just the two of them. Maybe they would talk about some of the things they hadn't been able to talk about in the middle of a crowd of two hundred cleansers. Maybe they wouldn't do any talking at all. They could do whatever they wanted, as long as they didn't make enough noise to draw attention to the tent. He studied Emil's face, but made no promises. "I'll come when I can," he said at last. "But I will come."

 

 

When the meeting wrapped up, it was still only a little after eight. Tuomas would be the one to report back to one of the local mages in Eno that night, so that the skalds and planners who remained there would know how progress was going. They were now twelve kilometers out from the town and had veered away from the old Highway 514 to turn toward the water and Pamilo. There were four months left of the seven month project, and it was appearing that Emil's insistence that they consider a direct route across the water had been the right call. If they'd been planning to go the thirty kilometers around the inlet, they would have been hard pressed to complete the whole route in time.

 _Maybe I should go tell him_. Lalli smiled to himself, since there was no one else around to see it. He had insisted that he wouldn't come by until later, but as he walked through the rows of tents, he hardly saw another soul. Those who liked to spend the night socializing were still hanging around the long tables where they ate their meals, drinking whatever they could get their hands on and swapping stories around the bonfires they built out of saplings and branches too small to be of any use for building. Those who wanted a more private way to spend the evening--whether alone or not--were already mostly in their tents. Cleansing was hard physical work and they took few breaks, so most of the troops hit the sack early and were glad for the chance to. Telling himself it was more a test than anything else, Lalli let his feet continue on toward Emil's side of the camp.

If he ran into anyone else, perhaps he would give up. That was what Lalli told himself as row after row of tents slipped by without him encountering another person out and about. Some tents were edged by the light of lanterns or candles within them; not everyone was asleep yet, to be sure. But no one seemed to be abroad to notice him slinking through the Swedish encampment and to the southeast tent where Emil would be waiting. With one last glance around as he approached, Lalli confirmed that no one was in sight and in a flash he ducked into the cozily-lit interior of Emil's tent.

Whatever he had been expecting, it hadn't been to find Emil sleeping face down atop his mat, a book tumbled from his limp hand. Lalli blinked as he looked around at the scene. He tilted his head to the side to try to decipher the title on the book's spine, though it took him a few tries. He had learned Swedish orally from Tuuri and had little practice reading the language.  _Den Stora Gåtan._ It had that odd _å_ in it that Finland had pretty much abandoned long ago, but that he remembered the Swedes still found necessary.

Lalli looked again over Emil's worn face in the light of the small camp lantern. It really shouldn't be so surprising that he would fall asleep. Lalli had woken him in the middle of the night--and not once but twice. And he knew that Emil had trouble sleeping at the best of times. He looked destroyed half of the days that he showed up to work. So Lalli did not shake him awake. He loosened the laces that held his boots up and slipped them off his feet, one and then the other. Crossing his socked feet, he picked up the book and turned the pages curiously, wondering what Emil would have chosen to bring all the way from Sweden with him.

He flipped past several pages of introduction and was surprised to find his eyes greeted by short lines of uneven lengths. This wasn't a novel. It was poetry. Songs. He flipped through the pages with distant curiosity until a familiar word caught his eyes _. Väinämöinen._ The Finnish name stood out amid the sea of Swedish, and Lalli paused to try to decipher the words around it. He had to whisper them aloud to try to match the letters to the sounds he was used to speaking, and there were words he didn't know among the marching text. But the ones he did know were more than enough.  _Oceans glittering in ancient light. The forest of his songs. The oak whose leap's a thousand years long. The mighty windmill turned by birdsong._

It was magic, of a kind, though he'd thought the Swedes were without magic. These words could have held magic, though. Lalli could feel the power in them. He gently closed the book and set it aside above Emil's head, where it would be safe from careless feet. He turned down the lantern, extinguishing the small flame burning at its wick and plunging the tent into darkness. Moving through the messy landscape he still had fresh in his mind, he crept to the bed and slid himself down next to Emil. Careful not to jar the sleeping man, he tucked himself against that warm body and whispered against his hot skin, "Don't ever stop surprising me."

 

 

Lalli was woken by a sharp kick and he whirled about, halfway across the tent by instinct before he realized he wasn't under attack. Emil was tossing and turning violently in his sleep, mumbling in a tone of distress. Lalli sprang back to his side, grabbing Emil's arms in an iron grip to keep the Swede from striking him. "Emil!" he hissed. "Emil, wake up! It's a dream!"

The wild struggle stopped as Emil opened his eyes in the dark and sucked in a deep gasp of air. His arms came up almost automatically to crush Lalli against him and Lalli's own arms were pinned at awkward angles, but he endured the discomfort without complaining. Emil gulped down air like a drowning man. He was still shaking minutes after his breathing had evened out, and Lalli tucked his head into a slightly more comfortable angle against one of his thick shoulders.

Slowly, Emil's vice-like grip loosed. He eased up enough for his hands to start sliding over Lalli's back, exploring and reassuring as they drifted up and down his upper arms and tangled in his hair. "Lalli," Emil whispered hoarsely. "I'm sorry. Are you okay? When did you get here?"

Lalli nodded into his shoulder. "I'm fine. You were asleep when I came. You looked tired."

Emil's hands were playing at the nape of his neck, brushing away the strands of hair that had worked their way loose from the tie there. "Well, I'm feeling more rested now," he murmured, his lips finding their way to Lalli's ear as he tried to brush away what had happened. "And since we're both awake now anyway..."

One hand wandered down Lalli's backside as the other was busily tugging loose the belt that cinched his tunic around his waist. Lalli considered telling him to slow down, but instead he lifted his head to find Emil's mouth and give him a proper kiss for the first time that night. Lalli understood nightmares. He was glad he hadn't had to deal with them for years, but he had been plagued by them once, when he and Tuuri and Onni had first come to Keuruu. He still remembered the terror of being trapped in a world of the worst things you could imagine and no escape in sight.

Emil pulled the belt loose and tossed it aside, his hands diving under Lalli's tunic and rucking it up as they roved over his skin. The tunic was soon gone, and then Emil's shirt as well. Lalli sighed his name as Emil rolled him over onto the thin mat, and he let Emil forget his nightmares for a time by filling his senses instead with the fire that burned between them.

Eventually they fell back asleep curled together in a sweaty mess. But it didn't last. The next time Emil woke, he didn't strike out at Lalli, but he did wake with a start violent enough to rouse the mage. Lalli tucked a thin arm across Emil's chest and pressed a brief kiss against the nearest bit of bare skin to his face. Emil ran a hand up and down his spine, and Lalli could hear the Swede's heart racing beneath his ear as he lay sprawled across him. The third time, Lalli was the first to wake and he jostled Emil to free him from the nightmare. He was beginning to understand firsthand why Emil looked so terrible some mornings.

Lalli had meant to leave sometime during the pre-dawn hours again, before anyone needed ever know he had been there. But the constant wakings left him so exhausted that he slept all the way until the sun had come up and his senses had begun to detect signs of life around the camp: footsteps passing by outside, quiet greetings echoing out between the earliest risers, birdsong from nearby forests. He flew upright.

It was too late to hope for anonymity in the dark, he realized as he rolled off the mat and hunted around the tent for the discarded bits of his uniform. He would have to hope that Emil had been right in his blithe claim that anyone who saw him coming out of Emil's tent in the morning would assume it was related to the project. They were lucky enough none of Emil's lieutenants or anyone else had come looking for their captain yet. There would have been no misinterpreting the scene when the two of them were sleeping undressed in the same bed.

His hurried dressing was enough to wake Emil, who scrubbed at his eyes wearily. He seemed to notice how bright the light was that was creeping around the tent's flap and he sat up straight. "Shit. Is it already morning? I'm sorry. I know you didn't want this to happen."

Lalli bit back the snappy reply that was on his tongue. It was his own fault as much as Emil's. He had chosen to come here, and he could have gotten up and left after any one of the times that Emil had woken him during the night, but he hadn't. "It's fine," he said shortly. "No one will notice."

"Would it be a problem for you if someone did?" Emil was sitting with one knee propped up, naked as the day he was born amid the rumpled blanket. He twitched the blanket over himself when he saw Lalli staring at him, and Lalli was fascinated to see a flush creeping up his neck. He wanted to reassure Emil--and he wanted to keep flustering him just to see what would happen. He settled for ignoring both urges, turning his eyes down to lace up his boots.

"I don't know," he said after he had run the leather ties around his ankles over and over until he used up all their length. He had never been public about any of his lovers. There had only been three. Veeti had been the first. It hadn't lasted long, and he certainly hadn't wanted anyone to know about it. The only reason he had even agreed to Veeti's propositioning him was because it had been a year since he'd returned from Denmark and he still hadn't been able to get Emil out of his head. Then there had been Jere. He had liked Jere, in fact. Enough that they could have perhaps been real friends. But Jere had wanted more than friendship and sex. He had wanted into Lalli's life. He had wanted to be introduced to Tuuri and Onni. He had wanted all of Lalli, and so much of Lalli had still been Emil's--even then.

And of course there was Aaku. He and Aaku had understood one another perfectly; neither of them would have ever wanted to be seen as a couple in the base. But this was Emil. He had spent so long wanting Emil, but that didn't mean he was comfortable with anyone else knowing it. He didn't like showing his love on his sleeve. Love was weakness and vulnerability. If he let Emil kiss him in the field or sling an arm around him in line for dinner, how would the others see them? Had Emil considered that?

"Would it be a problem for you?" he asked Emil as he started on his second boot. "You already have trouble with some of your lieutenants. What would they think if they found out you were sleeping with the enemy?"

Emil grinned. "The enemy?" He reached up and grabbed the end of Lalli's tunic, tugging him closer. "Has anyone every told you that you're overly dramatic at times?"

Lalli frowned at him in disapproval. "Never. They wouldn't dare."

Emil laughed out loud, and Lalli clapped a hand over his mouth. Reaching up, Emil grabbed his hand and pulled it away so that he could say: "I can think of a better way that you could shut me up, if that's what you're trying to do."

"You think you're so smart," Lalli said softly as he dropped down into Emil's lap, pushing him back until he fell onto his elbows and silencing him up with a kiss that left them both gasping for air.

Emil shook his head, his eyes still closed. "No. Definitely not. Because now I've started something that I can't possibly finish right now, but I really, really want to."

"Let that be a lesson to you then." Lalli smirked, straightening his own clothes as he stood. He ran his fingers through his hair, tying it neatly back out with the ease of habit. Before Emil could say anything more, he slipped out of the tent and walked down the row of tents with his head held high and an expression on his face that clearly meant business.

 

 

That day, Emil had returned to the north flank to monitor the progress there. When Lalli had shown up to dinner as one of the last arrivals, he had immediately found Emil amid the crowd. He had been watching as Emil took advantage of every lull in his conversation to look around the dining tables. When the Swede finally spotted him, a stupid smile broke out across his face and Lalli couldn't completely extinguish the happy glow that seemed to have ignited in his belly. He did keep his expression schooled, though, as he gave a brief shake of his head. More than a few surprised glances had greeted him that morning when he walked back to the Finnish side of camp at hardly after daybreak. He didn't want Emil rushing right over to him with that kind of look on his face now.

Deciding that watching Emil across the crowd without feeling like he could go to him was ruining the taste of his food, Lalli turned and left. He arrived at the mage meeting more than a half-hour early. When Tuuri arrived ten minutes later, he let her prattle on about whatever she was interested in, glad just to bask in her familiar presence and not have to contribute anything more than the the occasional hum. But after the meeting ended, he found his feet rooted to the ground. They wanted to turn to Emil's tent, but his brain was telling them to stop. It was risky to rush ahead so foolishly in this infatuation--but why? _Didn't Onni tell me I could be happy?_

He still didn't trust the quiet bliss that had rushed through his veins the past two days. He still feared that if he let anyone else see it, it would be taken away from him. Happiness was to be hoarded away and hidden and kept safe, like a precious cookie snuck away to be eaten in secret where no one could catch you. Telling himself that he was making the logical decision, and not one based out of irrational fear, he turned back to his own tent and began walking. He hadn't gotten hardly any decent stretches of sleep the past two nights, and his job depended on his ability to stay diligent while doing very dull work. He needed a night of decent sleep. Emil could use the rest as well. He could stay away one night.

 

 

The next day, Lalli was gone from camp before breakfast was even served. He took three oatcakes from the store he kept hidden in his tent and chewed on them as he patrolled his area before anyone else got there. He had plenty of time, so he jogged the last few kilometers to the inlet and back. They would reach the water by the middle of July, and then would come the real test: trying to construct a bridge that could stretch all the way across the marshy lake.

After he returned to his post, he spent the day not thinking about Emil, though it took quite a lot of deliberate effort to do so. He had tossed and turned alone in his tent the previous night, already spoiled by the sensation of having Emil beside him, within arm's reach and his to touch whenever he might want to. He had almost given up once, when it felt like he had been trying to sleep for hours, and had gone as far as throwing his blanket off as though he would get up from his thin mat. But by then his stubborn pride had refused to let him give into the temptation. He would prove to himself that he didn't need Emil that desperately, even if Emil was the thing he had wanted most his entire adult life.

He saw Emil at lunch, and his resolution weakened. Emil was having one of his bad days. Lalli could see the dark bags under his eyes even from meters away. Would it have been better if he  _had_ gone to Emil after all the previous night? Would he have been able to shake Emil from his nightmares? He was studying the Swede so intently that he almost didn't notice when Emil's eyes turned on him in turn. He blinked, slightly flustered to have been caught staring. Emil's lips twitched into a wan smile, and Lalli knew he had been caught out. But that was all that passed between them.

At dinner, Lalli stood in line to grab a plate, his gaze skipping over the tables to check for Emil's familiar blond head. But he didn't see him at all during that meal, and then it was time to go to his nightly report. For the first time, he didn't slip off quickly after his part was done. This was the night that Emil should show up for the progress report among the cleansers. So Lalli loitered around the front of the large field tent where the meetings were held, not looking at any of the other mages as they walked past him on their own way out.

When Emil ducked into the tent, he didn't even notice Lalli for several seconds. But the relief that Lalli felt in seeing the Swede again was enough that he could have slipped out then and been satisfied. Emil did notice him, though, and a series of quick emotions flickered across his face. Lalli at least recognized surprise and uncertainty.

Emil swung by his spot. "I've never seen you here before," he pointed out.

"I'm not part of the meeting." Emil nodded, his brow furrowed. "You weren't at dinner," Lalli said.

"Oh." Emil's expression softened somehow. "I was feeling a bit sick. I didn't feel like eating." It could certainly be true. His skin looked chalky in the bright light of the lanterns illuminating the large tent. It wasn't yet even twilight, but the cloth blocked so much of the sunlight from outside that it would have been unbearably gloomy without them.

Lalli nodded shortly, as if that was all the explanation he needed. It wasn't though--he wanted to ask what was wrong. Rather, he wanted to insist that Emil should go back to his tent that moment and get some rest. This meeting was mostly pointless anyway. Nothing much changed in a few days, and Emil moved around the work sites so much that he probably had about as good an idea of anyone how the project was going. But it wasn't Lalli's place. So he bit the inside of his lip and then said, "I guess you don't need any interruptions tonight then. Try to get better."

Emil started to protest but he seemed to rethink it. He managed a wistful smile. "Yeah. Maybe you're right. I'll try to get some sleep tonight."

Lalli ducked out of the tent before the cleansers' meeting officially began and went back to his own tent feeling oddly deflated. The previous night he had forced himself to stay away. But he had made his point; now he wanted to go back to Emil's tent and let himself indulge in doing exactly what he wanted for at least a few hours. He didn't want to face his small lonely tent again just yet.

He slipped out of the camp by scurrying up one of the rough posts that held up a watchtower, making the short jump to the walls that had been constructed around this third campsite and then dropping down to the ground outside. For a long time he walked back toward Eno. He had no intention of going that far, but he let his feet wander as he studied the walls that had been built to either side of the corridor. Most of the ground was black with soot, burned clear weeks ago.

When Lalli started seeing pink streaks in the sky seen between the log palisade and the spindly birches still standing outside it, he turned back to camp. He began to walk faster and faster, and it wasn't because dark would soon be falling. He had made up his mind on where he would spend the night. He wanted to know that Emil was all right. If the other man was already asleep, then Lalli would lie down beside him and let him sleep. And when he woke shaken by the past, Lalli would soothe him back to sleep. And when they woke in the morning, maybe they would even go to breakfast together.

The pink clouds had caught fire, the sky a riotous painting of oranges and red. Lalli jogged back to the camp, coming up on the southern side and wasting no time in scurrying up and over the wall. He flitted through the camp, not bothering to acknowledge the few souls he saw moving through distant rows of tents. He knew where he was going. When he got there, he was relieved and somehow nervous to see the slight glow of a lantern's golden light around the edges of the heavy cloth. Was Emil awake? He had agreed that Lalli shouldn't come. As Lalli dropped to his knee in front of the tent, he didn't let himself second guess his decision. He lifted the flap and ducked around the pole into the tent. 

   


Lalli heard a muffled curse. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust after the brilliant red sunset that painted the rows of the camp outside. Emil was stubbing something out against the sole of his boot, some small pale roll of something. A haze of smoke hung about the small tent: the sweet, musty smell that had clung to Emil since he had arrived in Finland now stronger than ever.

Lalli's brain hadn't yet caught up with his eyes but even before he was sure what he was seeing, the sinking feeling in his stomach told him that it was going to be bad once it hit him. It was as though he hadn't been looking where he was walking and had stepped out unexpectedly over empty space, teetering for a moment that seemed like eternity before the inevitable fall came. He remembered now the words he had spoken to Emil after their first night again. Had he been right along? Was his gods' punishment about to unfold and crash down upon him?

_This is only the beginning._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit, that ended up kind of longer than intended--sort of defeating the purpose of posting less often. And I meant to post it 10 hours ago, but this day hit the ground running and never stopped. So you get a mobile update as I sit in traffic! Hope the formatting is not too screwy.


	20. New Disaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I told you, man_  
>  _I told you_  
>  _Well, I wonder what it is you're after_  
>  _Keeping company with this disaster_  
>  \- New Disaster, Elliot Smith

**20**

 

Lalli's eyes narrowed as he sniffed at the air. "What is that?" he asked in a flat, dangerous tone.

Emil's hand closed over whatever it was he had stubbed out, and he moved it behind himself as he leaned back. "It's nothing."

Lalli moved further into the tent, making sure that the flap fell shut behind him. It wasn't much privacy, but it was better than shouting from outside the small canvas world. "What is it?" he repeated, his voice even harder than before but still kept carefully low.

"It's fine." Emil held up his other hand as though to keep Lalli at a distance. The empty hand. "It's just a bad habit."

Lalli threw himself at Emil, who was too surprised to immediately fight back. But once Lalli's hands were grabbing at his and trying pry his fingers open, he began to struggle. He curled around his right hand, trying to keep his shoulder between Lalli and whatever it was he held. Lalli wasn't having it. He straddled Emil's chest, his right knee digging into Emil's left arm as he pinned it down with his whole weight, slight though it might be. With his right forearm locked across the Swede's throat, his left hand scrabbled at the fist that Emil had been trying to protect. He already suspected what it held, but he had to see it. He had to know.

His short nails won the battle, and he lifted the small crumpled thing he had retrieved from Emil's desperate clutch. It looked like the tobacco he knew some people smoked, but when he lifted it to his nose, he understood that it wasn't that. He didn't know exactly what it was, but the smell could not be mistaken for tobacco. It had the burnt syrup smell that had clung to Emil the past several months. It smelled like escape and empty promises and death to Lalli.

"What is it?" he asked one last time.

He eased up on Emil's throat so that he could answer, but it still took some time. Emil swallowed several times. Finally, he whispered, "I just need it to help me sleep."

"It's a _drug_ , Emil!" Lalli's anger erupted as he hissed the words, the full reality striking home only as he spoke them out loud. "You brought _drugs_ with you into Finland? Do you know what would have happened if anyone caught you? If you weren't _arrested_ for smuggling drugs, you would have been sent back to Sweden! They would have never let you through the border again!" _You would never have made it here to me. Didn't that matter to you?_ His fist was squeezed so tightly around the bit of paper and poison that his knuckles ached. "How long have you been doing this? Why didn't anyone _notice_?"

"Why didn't anyone notice?" Emil repeated, throwing the words back at Lalli with a bitter twist marring his usually open face. "Who would have noticed? You are the _only_ one who has ever noticed me in my life, Lalli!"

Lalli sat back, and Emil wrenched his left arm free from where it had been pinned, crossing both his forearms across his face as if he needed to hide. "And I lost you," he mumbled. "I lost you once, because I fucked everything up, and now I'm going to lose you again."

What should he say? Lalli's world was spinning as if he was the one intoxicated. He didn't know if it was the cloying smoke in the small tent, or if he was simply sinking into shock. _Then better to sink_ , he thought dimly. He didn't just drop his emotions down into the pool within his mind this time. He let his entire being sink down below the icy water, looking out through that distant and distorting lens at the trembling man pinned under his legs.

It was easier this way. Easier not to feel. He could think coolly about what made the most sense and what he should do next. There seemed to be several options how he could react to the realization that Emil, the lover he had spent years aching for and finally had for himself, appeared to be regularly abusing some sort of illegal drug. Should he be harsh with Emil now? Would that make him realize the danger of what he was doing? Or would it push him farther over the edge?

"You didn't lose me," Lalli said. His voice sounded detached to his own ears, but no longer angry. "I'm right here, aren't I?" He watched as Emil slowly eased his arms down to look up at him. "But this has to stop."

There were shiny tear tracks leading from the corners of Emil's eyes down his temples and into his blond hair. "I know," he said hoarsely. "I've tried--but the nightmares--"

"No." Lalli's tone would brook no argument. "It stops. Right now."

He climbed off of Emil and stood, pointing down at him with one hand. "You stay right there." Then Lalli stepped out of the tent, lifting his fingers to his mouth to let out a piercing set of whistles. Two low, one high, one low.

It only took a few moments for a Finnish cleanser to pop her head out of a tent a couple of rows down, standing up and looking around for where the signal had come from. It was one of the signals anyone in the Finnish army knew: a call for backup. She probably thought they were under some sort of attack. Her eyes met his across the distance, and she jumped when she saw exactly who it was that had given the signal.

Lalli didn't have to ask what she was doing in the one of the Swedish cleansers' tents at this time of night. Standing with one of his own feet still in Emil's tent, he ordered her, "Find my cousin and bring her here. Tuuri Hotakainen, the skald."

The woman did not ask questions, reaching back into the tent to angrily demand her jacket from whatever poor lover had probably just had his night ruined, then throwing it on even as she set off at a sprint toward the Finnish end of the camp. Letting his breath out slowly through his nose, Lalli turned back to Emil's tent and leaned for a moment, holding onto the front pole for support. Beneath the impenetrable cloth, Emil was waiting to face whatever Lalli was about to heap out upon him. If only Lalli knew himself what it would be.

He remembered belatedly to give the all clear--one high note, two low--so that anyone else who might have heard the call and been heading this way would know it had been answered. As Lalli lowered his fingers from his lips, he stared at the sky. The horizon still burned vermillion, but the night sky overhead was the deep violet of _kurjenkello_ , the bellflowers that grew in the southern lands around Keuruu. He had to close his eyes and focus to keep down the thoughts fighting their way up through his calm waters. _Not yet._ There was still things that had to be done.

Lalli slipped back into the tent. Emil was sitting up now, his head in his hands. Lalli didn't try to go to him but instead he lowered himself to the ground to sit opposite the Swede. "Do you want to start explaining now," he said quietly, "or do you want to wait until Tuuri arrives?"

Emil looked up at him, his mouth hanging open. "Tuuri?" His voice was faint.

"She should be on her way here soon."

"Why? What are you planning to do? What's going to happen to me?" 

Lalli gave an owlish blink. "I'm going to make you hand over every scrap of that poison that you have," he said. He hadn't devised the plan ahead of time, but as he spoke the words, they felt right. "Then I am going to destroy it. Tuuri will remain here with you while I do. You will explain yourself, and Tuuri and I will come up with a plan for how we will handle this."

Emil's voice was even more bleak as he scrubbed at his eyes. "You're going to have to tell Teemu." Emil and Teemu had developed a good relationship, and this would destroy it instantly. Lalli knew that as well as Emil did. The old man would never forgive a captain doing something like this, especially not in the middle of a vital project.

"If you make that necessary." It was true. Lalli couldn't let Emil knowingly endanger the people on this project, including his own countrymen. It was bad enough knowing that it had been going on for the past three months, and knowing what could have come of it. The thought shivered through him, and he had to force it under the water. "So don't make me do it, Emil. This has to be the end of it."

"And the end of us?"

Lalli didn't answer. He didn't want to say yes, and he wasn't sure he could say no.

"Lalli, no," Emil whispered as he made an abortive move to get closer to him. "Please, you have to believe me. I can fix this. Lalli, I...I lov--"

" _Don't you dare,_ " Lalli hissed. "You're  _high_ , Emil. You think that's how I want to hear those words from you? You seriously--you just--"

He couldn't find words for how wrong it was. His hands shook as he clapped over his ears and his fingers dug into his hair, pulling it until his scalp ached. Something was writhing and wailing deep in the cold waters within his mind, and it might have been him. Lalli didn't dare look beneath the surface to be certain. He had to get back in control before Tuuri got there. He couldn't fall apart in front of them. He silenced the weak thing within himself and straightened, taking a slow deep breath. He released his painful grip on his hair and lowered his hands. "Don't say that," he said in a controlled voice. "It's not helping."

Emil looked stricken, his eyes huge in his white face. He sat with his hands useless at his sides, as though he didn't dare reach out to Lalli with them or with words. "I'm sorry," he whispered. Neither of them said another thing until Tuuri arrived and called from outside the tent in a tentative voice.

"Lalli?"

"I'm in here," he called back in Finnish. "Come in."

The flap was pulled back and Tuuri crawled, wrinkling her nose at the smoky smell that still lingered in the small space and looking uncertain about why she was there. "What is going on?" she asked Lalli in Finnish, following his lead.

He didn't know how to possibly begin, so he held out his fist and uncurled his fingers to reveal the crumbled roll of paper. It had been nearly destroyed in his tight, sweaty grip, and small bits of brown matter had spilled out of it, clinging to the skin of his palm, but Tuuri seemed to have no trouble understanding what it was. She sunk back on her heels, her breath whooshing out of her as she looked between her cousin and Emil, who was sitting with his shoulders hunched and a miserable expression on his face. "Is that...yours?" she asked her old friend in Swedish.

Emil nodded without speaking. Lalli spoke again in Finnish, still excluding Emil from the discussions. "I caught him smoking it. If anyone else finds out about this, he will be deported. You know that."

She was already nodding, her eyes still round and fixed on Emil. "Emil, what _happened_?"

Emil was holding his own knees, his fingers digging into the cloth of his pants. "I...I don't know. The nightmares got so bad, and I just couldn't ever sleep..." He scrubbed his hands through his hair, leaving it standing on end. "I was falling apart. Drinking didn't help, pills didn't help, nothing helped keep the nightmares away long enough or let me stay asleep. I was just so exhausted all the time. I couldn't do my job. Then one of the cleansers said he knew something...something that would help me sleep. He said he'd had nightmares too after a bad attack, and..."

He looked at Lalli, his eyes bright with tears again. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I tried to be okay without you. But I wasn't. I just couldn't do it without you."

Lalli didn't respond enough to even blink. Tuuri looked between them, her eyebrows nearly meeting in the middle. "I can step out," she said hesitantly, watching Lalli for any hint what she should do, "if you want a moment in private?"

"It's fine," Lalli said, feeling like he was looking at the scene from the end of a long tunnel. "Let's started by getting rid of it all. Emil?"

Emil didn't argue, going to the heavy canvas pack that was tossed on the floor of the tent. He dug around in it for a moment, his back to the two Finns, and pulled out a rolled-up pair of socks. Unrolling them revealed a small packet made of waxed paper. He handed it Lalli, his eyes downcast and watching the incriminating bundle as Lalli took it from him.

It crackled loudly in the silent tent as Lalli opened it and tipped out the content. There were 11 more small rolls like the one he had taken from Emil that night. He quickly began counting in his head. "This isn't enough," he said flatly. "You've been using them at least every third or fourth day, haven't you?" Emil winced and nodded. The pieces had begun to fall into place as soon as Lalli thought about it even a little. The regular pattern of Emil looking worse and worse over the passing days, until one day he would show up looking well-rested and at ease--despite looking like death warmed over the day before. The answer to the mystery was lying in the palm of Lalli's hand.

"This wouldn't have been enough to last the rest of the project," he said as he dropped the small paper rolls back into the packet and shoved them into the top of his boot for safekeeping.

Emil nodded gloomily. "I know. I didn't bring enough. I knew it wouldn't be enough." He looked from Lalli to Tuuri. "I thought I would have to start using less. I would have to space it out more, start cutting back. Then if I ran out, I would have no choice but to give it up. The...the guy who I got them from isn't here. I don't know how to get any more as long as I'm here." His eyes dropped back to the ground. "I knew I needed to stop."

"What's in them?"

Lalli heard Tuuri ask the question as he crawled past Emil to the cleanser's bag. He picked it up and tipped it over, pouring the content out onto the floor. There was no protest from Emil. At least he seemed to understand why Lalli would not take the word of an addict when he said that he had handed over everything he had. Once the bag was empty, Lalli felt all around it, patting the cloth to make sure there were no hidden pockets or extra places to hide anything. He listened to Emil haltingly explain that he wasn't sure what exactly he had been smoking, though he was sure they contained marijuana and opium at least. He hadn't ever asked for more detail than that.

Each item of clothing was carefully shaken out before Lalli folded them one at a time to put them back in the bag once he'd made sure there was nothing caught in their folds. As Tuuri tried to warn Emil about how bad withdrawal might be if he had formed any dependence on the drugs, Lalli opened each of his books, flipping through the pages to check that there was nothing tucked between them before dropping each into the bag as well. Tuuri listed possible symptoms of withdrawal as he pawed through Emil's shaving kit and his small bag of toiletries, not even pausing over the small bottle of lubricant that Emil had brought with him from Sweden. He didn't want to think about the teasing exchange they'd had only days before about Emil's unfounded optimism in packing for this trip.

Once everything was off the floor of the tent and stowed away in the sack, Lalli set it off in one corner, but only after first running his hands along the ground to make sure that he didn't feel anything beneath cloth covering. Smoothing his hands over the rest of the cleared space as he moved backwards, he reached the thin pad that he and Emil had shared together. He glanced at Emil, jerking his head to the side to tell him that he should move off of it. Once he did, Lalli took the blanket he had slept under with Emil and shook it out as well, folding it into a neat square when he was done. It went on top of the pack, too.

He lifted the sleeping pad to stand it on its side, as Emil and Tuuri sat side-by-side on the other side of the tent, now silent. Lalli patted down each side of the pad, then the ground it had been lying atop of. When he was done, he turned back to Emil. "Pockets out," he said shortly. Emil turned out the pockets of his trousers, unbuttoning the patch pockets on the side of each leg and inviting Lalli to confirm that they were clean. Lalli felt within them, his hands moving over the muscle of Emil's thighs as he swept the empty pockets. It seemed that the packet Lalli had taken was indeed all there was. If Emil was telling the truth about not having a source among any of the cleansers here, it should be the last of it.

Lalli crouched by the door flap. "I will get rid of this. Tuuri, you stay here with him until I return. Then we will talk about what we do starting tomorrow." They both nodded: Emil subdued and beaten, Tuuri with eyes still like saucers. Then Lalli left, setting off at a jog as soon as he was out of the tent. He'd managed to hold on so far, but he wasn't sure how much longer he could. He loped to the walls and hoisted himself up and over them in an area between watchtowers where he knew he was unlikely to be noticed. Then he set off through the woods alone, turning automatically toward the water.

It was night and he was alone in the wilds without even a rifle, but Lalli had been trained first and foremost as a night scout. The night held no fear for him. He had his puukko and he had his magic. It was unlikely he would run into anything that he couldn't handle alone with those two weapons. He picked up speed as he traveled the familiar path to the inlet; he had made this trip a dozen times by now, if not more. He needed the water. He needed the open air. He needed to be far enough away that no one could possibly see or hear him.

Lalli didn't let himself stop until he reached the marshy shores of Luhtapohjanjoki. He was breathing hard--and a run of a three kilometers did not make Lalli breathe hard. Yet his chest was heaving as he reached down and took the packet from his boot once more. He held it cradled in his two palms, looking down at it in the gloom. It was such a small thing--this little bundle of paper and plant matter. So easy to miss. So ready to bring everything crashing down around him.

Lalli summoned the fire into his hands. It was an element most mages didn't bother with. It took too much energy for something that was so easy to create using mundane tools. But Lalli needed to see this thing disappear into nothingness and ash. The flames licked his palms with tongues of living pain and he threw the packet away from him. He wanted nothing more than for it be away from him and away from Emil's reach. Before it could fall to the ground and the grasses there, he forced the wind to pick up and blow it higher into the sky, where it sailed up into the darkness like a falling star that had lost its way. The glimmering spot of orange-gold light grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared at last.

He twisted his burnt hands into fists at his sides. The gasping breaths that were making his chest rise and fall so jerkily grew even more labored, coming so quickly together that it became impossible to tell whether he was breathing in or out any longer. Lalli looked out at the glassy water before him, the distorted world of stars below and the cold reality above spinning dizzily as the world seemed to burn and blacken around the edges. He looked at the cruel, beautiful paradise that his gods had made, tipped his head back, and finally Lalli screamed.

He screamed until his breath ran out, and he had to suck in another lungful as the echoes rang in this ears and across the water. He screamed until his voice was hoarse and his throat ached with it. Where there was no one left to see, Lalli screamed at his gods and cursed their names. He renounced them and all that they were. He tore at his hair and sank to his knees, and he let the waters within his mind break free, and everything he had held inside poured out as though it was his very soul spilling out of him. Was that what was leaking down his face?

"Why?!" He shouted up at the twinkling stars that did not stop shining. "Hasn't it been enough yet?! What have I done!? _Tell me that much at least_!What _more do you want from me?!_ "

There was no response. The night was still and quiet around him. Lalli didn't know if the gods had already turned away from him for his blasphemy, or if he was so insignificant in their eyes that even his greatest rage and insults could not move them to anger. He felt smaller and more alone than he could remember feeling since he was child. Were they even still there? What if they weren't? Why did he suffer if it weren't the gods' punishment? Why would life be so unfair if there was no lesson to be learnt from it? If no hand held the whip that drove the course of his life, then where was he to go?

Lalli fell to his side on the ground, the cold mud oozing against his face and into his hair. He wanted never to get up again. He was so tired. He had tried too long to understand what his gods wanted of him. He had thought so many times that he understood, and yet he seemed to have gotten it wrong every time. How could he have been wrong to want Emil _and_ wrong to reject him? How could he be wrong to give up Emil _and_ wrong to finally take him for himself? Was there any right path anywhere?

"I'm sorry," he whimpered quietly to the gods and spirits that must surely still fill the world around him. His voice was as weak and guilty as Emil's had been when begging for his understanding. "I don't know what it is we've done, but he's a good man. Help him. Forgive me. Please...please forgive me." Lalli closed his eyes and breathed the smell of the wet earth deep into his lungs. "Please forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yargh! Wanted to do more with this, but updates must be had! And if anyone needs a happier anthem for Emil's situation, I think you can blame Gaemmel for the recommendation of Marianas Trench's "Who Do You Love." Plus it has a pretty adorable music video.
> 
>  
> 
> _God, it's been so long wide awake that I feel like someone else_  
>  _I'll miss the way that you saw me or maybe the way I saw myself_  
>  _But I came back to you broken and I've been away too long_  
>  _I hear the words I've spoken and everything comes out wrong_


	21. Half Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Would you say that one of your dreams_  
>  _Got in you and ripped out the seams?_  
>  _That's what I'd say_  
>  _That's what I'd say_  
>  \- Half Right, Elliot Smith

**21**

 

Lalli was no longer dripping, at least, by the time he dropped back into the camp. Gripping the rough wooden walls with his raw skin had made him hiss in pain, though, and he was still gritting his teeth when he arrived back at Emil's tent. He had soaked his burns in the cold lake water for a long time after washing away the mud and crushed grass caking his clothes and hair, but his hands would still take days to heal. He let himself into the tent without any niceties.

Tuuri and Emil looked up at him from a hushed conversation, and Tuuri rose halfway to her feet. "What happened? You're soaked through!"

Lalli shook his head. "It's not important," he said in a short tone that did not invite questions. "Let's talk about what we do next."

Tuuri nodded, her lips pressing together briefly. "Okay. Did you have some sort of plan?"

"We don't let him out of our sight until this poison is out of his system," Lalli proposed at once. He'd had enough time to think on the way back, and Lalli had decided what he needed to happen.

They were speaking in Swedish, so Emil would understand what was being decided. He didn't protest. Lalli studied him and then asked, "Is he going to get sick?" He had been listening to her talk about withdrawal even while his hands had been busy searching Emil's things.

"I'm afraid he might," Tuuri admitted. "I'm really not an expert about any of this, but I think that's pretty typical with these kinds of drugs. There might be things that a doctor could give him to help, but I really don't know for sure. And I take it you still don't want to tell anyone about this...?"

Lalli shook his head again. "When will it begin?"

Tuuri shrugged helplessly, obviously feeling out of her depth. "I don't know." She turned to Emil. "Do you normally start to feel bad if you don't use anything for a while?"

He hesitated, but at last he nodded.

"If it gets so bad that he can't work, I'll need your help," Lalli said to Tuuri. "I can't leave my section unguarded during the day, but I'll take the nights. As long as he can work, though, he will stay with my flank during the days as well. He can come up with his own excuse for why he is no longer rotating through his divisions."

The long jog back from the lake had kept Lalli from feeling cold, but now the clammy damp of his clothes was beginning to sink into his skin. His teeth grit together again, this time to keep from shivering. Emil spoke up voluntarily for the first time as he softly said, "Lalli, _please_. Just put on something dry."

Lalli looked at him a long moment, then gave a quick nod. Emil went to the bag that Lalli had so recently ransacked and pulled out a long-sleeved shirt that had seen little use during the past few months of warm weather. He held it out with a hand that only slightly shook. "There's no way my pants will stay on you, but if you don't mind holding them up, they're yours, too."

Emil seemed lucid, but maybe that wasn't surprising. If he'd been acting completely unlike himself, Lalli would have noticed sooner. He _would_ have noticed, wouldn't he have?

Lalli stripped off the damp tunic that stuck to his skin, not caring that Tuuri was sitting right in front of him. They'd been children together, and she'd seen him naked a hundred times. Besides, she was a grown woman now. She must have seen naked men before. She did at least look tactfully toward the ceiling of the tent as he peeled off his wet leggings and boots. He slipped Emil's shirt over his head and it hung on his thin frame like he was nothing more than a collection of bones within it. The familiar smell of Emil surrounded him, the old spicy smell still there beneath everything else.

He stepped into the pair of trousers that Emil handed him, holding them at the waist with one hand as he tried to spread his clothes out to dry with the other. Emil stepped in to take over, stretching the cloth out and tugging out folds and wrinkles without a word. Tuuri took Lalli by the arm.

"Lalli, what is going on between you two?" she asked in Finnish, drawing him aside as far as was possible in the small tent. "I'd been meaning to talk to you tonight anyway. I had a letter from Onni this afternoon."

"A letter?" Lalli repeated.

"Yes, a letter." Tuuri's eyes rolled up toward the cloth ceiling. "Not all of us can meet in our dreams to talk. He writes at least once a week."

The meeting with Onni three nights prior had been the first time Lalli had spoken with his cousin since leaving Keuruu, and he wasn't getting any weekly letters. But he didn't mention that to Tuuri. His relationship with Onni was different than hers was, in more ways than just correspondence. "What did he say?" he asked, watching Emil fiddle unnecessarily with his wet clothing.

"He was saying--well, it wasn't very clear. He was vague and confusing. Did you talk to him about Emil? Is that what he was trying to hint at? Are you two--together?"

"Maybe we were," Lalli said in an emotionless tone.

"What does that mean?" Tuuri's voice was uncertain. "Do you mean that you've changed your mind about him? I mean, I wouldn't blame you if you had. I just..."

"What I want," Lalli ground out, "has never once changed. Not once."  _And isn't that the problem?_

It was the closest Lalli might ever come to admitting to her just how hopelessly he had loved Emil, in every way he was capable of, for all these years. It hadn't changed. He hurt and he was horrified and he felt guilty and angry and lost, and Emil might be the cause of it all--and still Lalli wanted him. And if he went to Emil right now and laid his head on Emil's chest, the other man would probably wrap his arms around Lalli and clutch him like he was most precious thing in the world. Lalli closed his eyes a moment, tired to his bones.

"If you still care about him, then...I hope you'll try to help him." His eyes popped open and when he looked at Tuuri, she was chewing on her lip. She went on, "We were talking while you were gone, and I think he really needs help. I know it's too much and that it's a risk and that you won't want to have to break the rules, but--"

"I'm doing it."

"You're...what?" Tuuri's flood of words stuttered to a stop.

"I already decided." Lalli looked at her steadily, still filled with the same echoing calm that had taken over him at the lake when he had realized what he was going to do. "I'm not going anywhere." 

Because the fact was that Lalli had given up. He had exhausted himself and made himself miserable trying to understand what his gods wanted of him. Perhaps Onni was right, and they did not mean to punish him. Perhaps Lalli himself had been right all along, and _this_ was their punishment falling down upon him now. Maybe they'd both been wrong, and the gods had never been there at all. Lalli simply didn't know any longer.

He had lain in the cool mud on the banks of Luhtapohjanjoki and known just one thing with any certainty: he had finally gotten what he wanted with Emil and now that he'd experienced it, he didn't want to give it up. Not even for his gods. He had tried asking them for guidance every way he knew how. For months, he had prayed and he had begged and he had screamed. If they would not give him his answer, then he would not ask them any longer. Lalli would listen to himself, and for once in his life, he would let his own wants rule his actions. Because he simply didn't understand what anyone else wanted from him any longer.

Tuuri's soft fingers passed across his forehead, tucking his straggling hair behind his ear. "Are you sure you don't want to tell anyone else, though, Lalli? It's a lot to deal with and neither of us have any kind of background with this sort of thing."

He shook his head. "I know Teemu. He would not tolerate this from someone in Emil's position. If it was just an enlisted cleanser, maybe it would be different. But Emil is responsible for people's lives, just like he is. He would not let him keep working on the project. We would be lucky if he only chose to remove Emil from the project, and sent him home without reporting this to his superiors." And Lalli did not want to see Emil go. Even if he did not know how he was supposed to fix this, gods help him, he did not want to see Emil go.

Lalli switched to Swedish as he pulled Emil back into the conversation. "There are no second chances here. No mistakes. If anyone finds out about this, I assume your career will be over. If anyone finds out that Tuuri and I knew about this and hid it, we could both lose our positions in our military. Do you understand what is at risk?"

Emil nodded gravely, his face pale and drawn. "I understand. I swear I wouldn't do anything that could mess things up for you two."

 _Too late_. Perhaps the thought showed on his face, because Emil's face turned a dull red as he muttered, "I mean, from now on."

"Do you think I need to tell you again tomorrow, or will you remember this conversation?"

"You don't have to remind me," Emil said in a whisper. "I will remember this."

Lalli nodded, his eyes still not leaving Emil's face. "Good. Then Tuuri should probably go get some sleep." He looked at his cousin. "I'll find you if I need you tomorrow."

Tuuri agreed and got to her feet. She paused in front of Emil and waffled a moment before giving him a quick hug. "I'm still mad at you for doing something this stupid to yourself," she said into his ear. Lalli could easily hear the words from where he stood. "You should have talked to someone first. But we're going to make sure you beat this, Emil. Don't give up."

Emil looked up at her mutely as she patted his cheek one last time. Then after a tight hug for Lalli that went on so long he began to wonder if she was ever going to let go, Tuuri slipped out of the tent and left them alone together.

Lalli turned and stared down at Emil from where he was standing beside the entrance to the tent. The Swede looked straight back at him without speaking. Maybe he had thought better of trying to make any more excuses. Or maybe he just didn't know where to start. Neither did Lalli.

He sat himself on the sleeping pad. Emil was still sitting on the hard ground on the opposite side of the tent. Lalli patted the space beside him. He had decided to listen to what he wanted and right now, he was tired and he wanted to lean on Emil. Once the Swede shuffled over and gingerly lowered himself down to sit beside him, that was exactly what Lalli did.

"This doesn't mean that things are okay," he pointed out when he felt the breath whoosh out of Emil. "It just means...that this is what I want to do right now." Emil had done what he wanted without considering how it impacted anyone else. Why shouldn't he get to do the same?

"I'm not complaining," Emil said quietly. He held himself still at first, then he slowly slid his arm around Lalli's back, the touch of his hand tentative as it came to rest against his hip.

"How impaired are you right now?" Lalli asked after several moments of quiet.

"I don't think I am at all, honestly." The fingers of Emil's free hand were twisting nervously in the cloth of his pants. "I'd barely...I'd barely lit up when you showed up."

Lalli thought about that for several long moments. "Have you ever been high in front of me?" he asked at last. He wanted to know if he had missed it somehow. If he hadn't known Emil well enough to even notice. Emil shook his head, but Lalli still wracked his memory of the past three and a half months. He had hardly seen Emil outside of the days when the captain had worked in this area, and he thought Emil wasn't stupid enough--or so far gone--to show up high during work hours. "What about that first night?" he asked.

Emil started. "No. I wasn't on anything then. Not when I saw you. But--after you left. When I went back to my tent."

"Why, Emil?" Lalli asked, finally getting to the question that was at the heart of everything. "Why do it?"

"I... It's not like it's something I chose to do." He felt Emil's shoulder moving beneath his cheek as the Swede put his hand over his face. "I mean, I _did_ choose to do it, but I didn't think--I didn't know--no, I knew, but--" He fell into miserable silence for a long time. Lalli waited as long as it took, feeling the slight movement passing through Emil's body as he breathed in and out. "I just couldn't face it all alone."

Lalli didn't have any response. After a long time, he nodded because it seemed like Emil was waiting for him to say something and he didn't know what else to do. "You seem to be taking this pretty calmly," Emil said with a weak echo of his usual wry humor.

"If I told you how much it hurt or how angry I was," Lalli said, his voice low and controlled, "would it make you feel better or worse?"

He could hear Emil swallow. Any traces of humor were gone as he mumbled, "Worse, I guess."

Lalli shrugged. "Exactly."

"But you _are_ angry. And hurt." Emil reached up to wrap his arm around Lalli, putting their heads together. He sounded pained and his fingers were digging into Lalli's scalp. "And it's my fault. So just yell at me or do whatever you need to do. I deserve it. I'm the one who messed up. You're not supposed to be protecting me. I _deserve_ to feel bad."

It took Lalli a moment to understand why the words sounded so familiar. Then he understood: how many times had he told himself he deserved to suffer at the hands of his gods? He squeezed his eyes shut. Were their sins really so deserving of punishment? Emil had lost his way when he had lost everything and fallen into despair. If Lalli could forgive him for that, couldn't the gods forgive Lalli for falling in love and wanting someone who had cared for him when he needed it? Even if they couldn't, Lalli was done with seeking their approval.

"It's okay that you couldn't handle it alone," Lalli said slowly.  _It's okay that I couldn't stop loving you._ "But you aren't alone now. So it has to stop."

Emil buried his face in Lalli's hair, arms snaking around his narrow chest to hold onto him. His rough voice came from right above Lalli's ear. "How can you still be here?"

Lalli shrugged again. He wasn't ready to think or speak about all that he had lost to bring him here. He felt oddly numb as he huddled against Emil's all-too-human warmth.

"I never should have let you go in December."

"Let me go?" Lalli turned his head slightly, smelling the sweat in Emil's hair. "I was only visiting. I had a life here. I was going on that ferry regardless of what did or did not happen between us."

"But it could have been different. If I didn't think you hated me, if I didn't think I'd ruined everything, then maybe..." Emil squeezed tighter, but he didn't go on. Neither spoke for a long time.

"What do we do now?" Emil asked at last.

"We lie down," Lalli said, "And we go to sleep. And when you wake up from a nightmare, you remember where you are and that you are safe. And you go back to sleep. And we will keep doing that, over and over, as long as it takes."

He reached up with his left hand to turn down the lantern that hung from the tent pole, and the tent plunged into darkness. Emil inhaled sharply, but Lalli moved away, lowering himself onto the mat until he was lying flat on his back. He reached up and tugged Emil down as well. Lalli looked over at him in the gloom.

"Can I hold you?" Emil asked in a voice that would have been missed if it weren't completely silent.

Lalli nodded and felt Emil's arms slowly slide around him, gathering him up against his hot body. Lalli let himself be held, because he needed it and Emil needed it and neither of them had anything else right now but one another. Emil's arms tightened even further. Lalli gripped handfuls of Emil's shirt in his fists, still unable to quite bring himself to hold onto Emil himself.

"What's going to happen tomorrow?" Emil asked over his head.

"I don't know."

"Are we going to be okay?"

"I don't know."

For the first night since he had been old enough to know the names of his gods, Lalli did not have even a fleeting word to offer up to them before sleep. His hands were balled in the cloth over Emil's heart, not held out in prayer. It was not Uni that he could expect to hold him safe in sleep. Instead it was Emil's heavy arms that contained him and kept him from falling apart. They stayed like that until long after Emil fell asleep. They stayed like that until the first nightmare came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO HARD. Sorry. This is what happens when I run out of buffer. I'm not the type of writer that plans ahead, thus I much prefer to be several chapters ahead so that I can go back and tweak earlier things so that they fit together right. Now they may not all fit together right, because I have only the vaguest shape in mind for the next few chapters. I went through about five different kinds of reactions with Lalli, and I still wish I could do more to improve this one, but it must be posted.
> 
> At least I got to satisfy some of you with the fact that Lalli is in fact staying overnight with Emil? I hope?


	22. Seen How Things Are Hard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I can't make corrections for you_  
>  _You have to help to patch things up_  
>  _Seen how things are hard_  
>  _Seen how things are hard_  
>  _I love you though_  
>  \- Seen How Things Are Hard, Elliot Smith

**22**

 

Lalli was woken in the morning by Emil whispering his name. He pried his eyes open reluctantly. It had not been a restful night, and Lalli wasn't sure if he should be more glad that it was over or resentful that he had to get up. Emil was watching his face from the scant inches separating them. "You're still here," he said, sounding tired and almost disbelieving.

"Did you not understand last night?" Lalli grumbled, rubbing his hands over his face in effort to feel more awake. "I'm not letting you out of my sight until I know you're done acting like an idiot."

Emil reached out to brush Lalli's long hair back off his face. "Is that supposed to be a bad thing? You're saying it like it's a bad thing. I can't seem to see it as a bad thing." Despite everything else, Lalli was tempted to smile.

Instead he pulled away and sat up, Emil's too-large shirt ballooning around him. He'd kicked off the pants sometime during the night, when they'd ended up down around his knees. "Are you going to be able to work today?" he asked, studying Emil as the other man still lay flat upon the thin mat.

Emil winced and then ran a hand through his hair, which had been growing unchecked during the months in Finland. "Yeah," he said at last. His voice was soft and small. "It'll be fine. I can handle it."

Lalli kept looking at him.  _That was the kind of thinking that got you into this mess,_ he thought to himself. But he didn't say the words to Emil. Not yet.

He started to roll away to get his uniform, which hopefully had dried during the night. Emil's hand wrapped around his arm, though, and stopped him. When Lalli turned back to look at him, Emil slid the hand down until he caught Lalli's hand. Lalli looked down in surprise at their intertwined fingers. Emil had never tried to hold his hand before.

"Thank you," Emil said as his thumb ran over the back of Lalli's hand. He was also looking down at their hands. "Thank you for coming back last night. For not giving up on me."

Lalli nodded. He still didn't know what else to do.

 

 

"Is the nausea a symptom?" Lalli asked. They were standing at the edge of his area and the sun was already streaming down on them, though none of the other cleansers had arrived for duty yet. Lalli was tearing off small pieces from the flatbread in his hand and chewing them slowly. Emil had refused to take anything from the breakfast spread, and Lalli knew he had been avoiding eating the day before as well.

Emil stiffened, then seemed to deflate. "Seems to be."

"You know you can't go the rest of your life without eating," Lalli pointed out.

"Let's hope it gets better soon then," the Swede snapped back. He squeezed his eyes shut, his hands curling into fists. "Sorry. It's not your fault."

Lalli shrugged. "I _am_ the one who took your supply away." He watched Emil from the corner of his eyes. "You could blame me for that."

Emil shook his head and sighed. He looked out toward the sparse trees that stood between them and the water still. Sometimes you could almost think you'd caught a glimpse of it glimmering between their spindly trunks; that was how close they were now. "I can't blame you for anything," he said, his voice almost as distant as his eyes as he hitched his shoulders up under the warm sunlight. "I'm not in any position to argue with anything you say."

Lalli wasn't inclined to disagree. He was pretty sure that him forcing Emil to stop using the drugs was the right course of action. But he still didn't much like hearing the beaten words from Emil. "All right then. So tell me how this works."

The blond man looked at him uncertainly, his brow furrowed above those sky-blue eyes. "How what works?"

"The drugs," Lalli said. He watched as Emil looked around nervously, but Lalli knew they were still alone. He would have noticed anyone else approaching. "How do they affect you? You seem to have expected this nausea. What else should we expect?"

Emil shifted uncomfortably, but he didn't refuse to answer. "The first day is always fine. Great even. I finally get some sleep, and I feel _normal_  again. But it doesn't last long. By the next night, the nightmares are back." He scrubbed at his hair. "When I...started this, I was smoking almost every night. And it worked. I could function during the day. I could sleep through most nights. It wasn't hurting anyone. There was no one left to get hurt by it."

"So what happened?" It seemed like Emil had given up on using the drugs every night sometime between the winter and now. Sometime before he had even decided to come to Finland, considering the amount he had brought with him.

"You did," Emil said, and Lalli frowned at him. "I heard about this project at the end of January. I guess I must have heard about it before then, but I hadn't paid any attention. But after December--after we--" Emil was looking at him beseechingly. "As soon as I heard that there was a chance to go to Finland, all I could think about finding you and trying to fix things between us. But I knew...I couldn't face you like this."

The Swede looked like he felt ill, but Lalli wasn't sure if it was the memories or his present situation that was causing the situation. "I tried to quit once. I didn't even make it three full days. That was when I first realized how bad I'd gotten."

"I realized it wasn't going to be as easy as I'd thought. But coming here, joining this project... It was like everything coming together. I could find you. I would have a reason to stop. I could cut myself off and I wouldn't be able to get any more even if I wanted to." He swallowed hard. "So I started more slowly trying to wean myself off the stuff. I started only smoking every other day. Then trying to push it to every three days. That was as far as I'd gotten by the time the project started, though.

"Once it's been more than two or three days, it's hard not to think about having more. My body's tired and achy, but I can't sleep. I've tried pushing it further--I can sometimes make it four days, even five days once or twice. But then I start to really feel sick. I can't eat. Everything hurts." He scrubbed at his hair.

"And when was the last time you smoked?" Lalli asked. "Before your attempt last night."

"The night before...you came to my tent." Emil looked up at him through his shaggy blond hair.

"So it had been at least four days," Lalli said. He knew exactly how many nights had passed since he had dared to go to Emil and take what he wanted for himself. "And last night you did not have a full...dose."

Emil shook his head. "I would say not."

"So now it begins."

The Swede nodded, his lips looking bloodless as he clamped them tightly together.

 

 

They made it through the day, though Emil refused to eat any lunch either. "If I have anything any my stomach, I won't be working here in the field," he'd explained in a bitter tone. "I'll be spending my afternoon in a latrine somewhere. Trust me." Lalli decided to believe that Emil did have more experience with this particular problem than he did and did not push the point any harder. Instead they used the lunch break to stop by Lalli's tent so that he could gather up his rucksack and few things to leave them at Emil's tent. He made a lunch of some of the snacks he hoarded among his belongings, nibbling on dried oat bars as they made their way around the camp and back to the site.

That night, Lalli left Emil with Tuuri when he had to go to his nightly meeting with Teemu. He made one quick detour first, then sat through the useless session while his mind was somewhere across the camp. After all three field mages had given their reports, the meeting broke up and Lalli paused a moment to warn Teemu that he thought the Swedish captain might be coming down with a summer cold or something. It was the only warning he could provide to try to head off any questions, and he only hoped that the worst of Emil's symptoms would not last long enough to draw more serious attention.

On his way back to Tuuri's he detoured back to the cook area once more, just as he had on his way to the meeting. One of the cooks had made up the broth he had asked her for, and he carried it back with him in a canteen that was almost painfully hot. Emil looked relieved to see him when he showed up at Tuuri's tent. Lalli didn't know if it was because Tuuri had been pestering him, or if Emil was truly that relieved each time Lalli returned--just to know that Lalli still hadn't given up on him yet.

They returned to Emil's tent and Lalli didn't even concern himself this time with the question of whether anyone might notice or wonder why he was going into Emil's tent with him. He forced Emil to swallow down a few mouthfuls of broth before they curled up for an early night. He felt guilty then when Emil ended up spending an hour among the malodorous camp latrines as a result, and didn't push Emil to drink anything more than water after that.  _If this lasts more than a few days,_ he thought to himself,  _then we'll have to try something else. But I guess he can go a few days without eating._ After all, they'd survived the last weeks in Denmark on hardly more than scraps.

That night was worse than the previous one. Emil couldn't get to sleep for a long time due to the cramping in his stomach. Lalli dozed between sleep and waking, absently stroking Emil's head whenever he was awake enough to remember to move his hand, and shushing under his breath at the Swede like he had used to do when they were on watch together during the bad days. Emil's arms sometimes shook where they wrapped around Lalli's narrow waist, and they were both exhausted when morning arrived again.

 

 

Normally Emil would have returned to the northern flank on this day, but he braved the breakfast crowd just long enough to talk to his lieutenants and tell them that he was going to stick with the front for a few days to see if they could reach the water to start the preparations for the bridgework. When one of the men remarked that Emil wasn't looking too good, he glanced at Lalli and repeated the story that he had come up with: "Yeah, I think I'm coming down with something. I hope I can fight it off."

The excuse was made more believable by Emil's pallor, which only grew worse throughout the day, and his sniffling and sneezing. By the time the crews were breaking for lunch, anyone might have indeed believed that he had some kind of cold. Lalli was worried he might have to track down Tuuri during the meal break, but Emil insisted that he would make it till the day finished. He was moving slowly and looked miserable, but somehow he kept his word.

Lalli got Emil back to his tent as soon as the last cleansers left the field and was just stepping out to go find Tuuri when she came walking down the row of tents toward him. She held out the bowl of stew that she'd been carrying, whisking away the extra plate she'd balanced on top of it to try to keep any from spilling out. "I saw you two walking past everyone," she explained, "and I assumed you wouldn't be making it to dinner."

He rewarded her with a grim smile. "Thank you."

Tuuri reassured him that she would keep Emil company while he reported to Teemu. So Lalli stood outside the tent and drank down the chunky stew, not wanting to take it into the tent where the smell might bother Emil in his state. He carried the plates back to the cook area and returned them to the staff there before turning to Teemu's meeting tent. This time he told the old man that Emil was definitely sick and would likely not be in the field the next day. He also explained that Tuuri might be watching over him the next day, letting the head cleanser assume that it was just out of concern for her old friend.

The moment the meeting ended, he was back outside and practically jogging back across the camp to Emil. He ducked into the small tent that was beginning to feel like half his world, and Tuuri looked up at him with obvious relief. Emil was already curled on his side on the sleeping mat, though he was awake, and Tuuri had been sitting next to him with one of his Swedish books open on her lap. She closed the book and got to her knees. "I'll come back tomorrow morning," she told Emil, obviously under no delusions about his ability to keep working in his current state, "and we'll pick up from the last chapter again."

Emil smiled weakly and murmured, "See you tomorrow, I guess."

She gave his arm a reassuring pat, and Lalli a quick squeeze, then said quietly in Finnish before she left, "I'll be by before eight, if that's okay?" Lalli nodded, and she tried to look brave. "He'll be better soon. Don't worry."

Then another long night had begun.

 

 

"Why did you start liking me?"

Lalli shifted onto his back, staring up at the cloth above them. It was perhaps the fourth or fifth time they'd woken up that night. He thought about telling Emil just how many times he had asked himself the same question over the past four years. He glanced over at Emil's miserable face, though, and took pity on him. "You let me steal your sandwich," he said at last.

Emil's red-rimmed eyes widened slightly, then he snorted in weak laughter. "You're talking about on the train to Mora? That first day?" He was still smiling when the next bout of tremors hit him. "I remember that," he said through gritted teeth. The chills had been growing more frequent throughout the night.

Lalli nodded. "On that train ride, Tuuri told me that we would be working together. A lot. I wasn't very happy about that, so I started watching you. I wanted to know what I was going to be stuck with." He curled his hands up and then forced himself to relax them again. "I noticed..." He fell silent, trying to put the thoughts in order. It was odd to talk about these things, but Emil needed the distraction and Lalli had his own things he didn't want to think about in the long night. "I noticed that you were kind. You tried to protect me from the troll on the Dalahästen, even though you were obviously terrified and useless."

Emil made a sound of protest, but didn't bother with actual words. Lalli went on. "I could see how afraid you were when we went out on book hunts together in those first weeks. At first I just thought it was pathetic..." There was another grumble from Emil. "But you always tried. You made yourself go out there even though you were scared."

Lalli remembered that kind of fear. He'd had to face off against trolls and beasts from a far younger age than Emil, but even he had once felt nervous and afraid when he left behind the safety of his village or the military base. He had been able to forgive Emil for being half a dozen years older before he finally had to master that fear for himself; he was a silly spoiled lump from Sweden, after all. He had seen Emil as something like the new recruits he had watched enter the scouts over the years after he'd joined: brash and nervous and hopeless.

He'd had nothing much to do but observe the others, when he wasn't either sleeping or scouting. He couldn't understand any of them in those days, so he had watched their faces and their bodies and noticed the sighs and the grins and the furrowed brows. "You put your foot in your mouth, but you never seemed intentionally cruel. You smiled at me every time I returned to the tank. You refused to let me shut you out when I tried to. You cried over a beast's death." Lalli rolled over and peered into Emil's face. "You weren't quite like anyone else I'd ever known, and that was why I started liking you."

"I wonder if you still like me so much now." Emil was probably trying to make it sound like a joke, but Lalli heard the sorrow in his voice as he huddled, shivering, inside the nest of blankets.

"I told you when we started this. You've never not been a mess." Lalli brushed the sweaty hair back from Emil's forehead. "And I've never not wanted you."

 

 

"Was I the one?"

Emil's question surprised Lalli out of the doze he'd fallen into. It was sometime between midnight and dawn, and Emil had woken them both up ten minutes before with his flailing. Once he had quieted down, Lalli had begun drifting back into sleep, but apparently Emil had not.

"The one what?" he asked in a slurred voice, resisting the need to wake up fully for conversation.

"The one you talked about. When I asked you about whether you'd ever fallen in love."

Lalli stiffened and suddenly felt very much awake. Emil was talking about  _that_ night. It was that exact series of questions--and a good amount of vodka--that had left Lalli so desperate and confused and wanting that he had thrown himself on Emil, and found out for the first time that Emil might not push him away. He tried to remember what he had said to Emil then. He thought he remembered telling Emil that there had been someone--the first person he'd ever been attracted to, the first person he'd ever wanted to be physically close to. Really, it didn't matter what he'd said, though. The truth remained the same.

"Yes. You were the one."

Emil twisted closer to him, his legs twined around Lalli's. "I'm glad," he murmured. "Sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep."

And Lalli obeyed.

  

 

Even though Lalli had been the one to say from the beginning that Tuuri would have to stay with Emil during the day once things got too bad, he was the one who found it difficult to leave the next morning. Tuuri had shown up early in the morning, carrying a bag of food for herself with the expectation that she might not be able to get away for most of the day. Emil had been sitting up on the sleeping mat, still wrapped in the blankets and shivering as he hunched over in pain. Lalli had known that he had to go and Tuuri had been there watching, and still he hadn't moved to exit the tent. He had wracked his brain but there was no excuse to linger.

Finally he had crouched down in front of Emil one last time and looked him intently in the eye. "I will be back," he had said firmly. "Okay?"

Emil had managed a weak smile. "Of course. Tuuri promises she'll read lots of boring books to me. I'm sure I'll get plenty of rest."

In the end, Lalli had forced himself to go. He had spent the day in his usual position, but his mind and his heart had not been in it. He had let his thoughts wander back to Emil and Tuuri in the small tent some two kilometers away. It was easier to think about what Emil might be going through than to think about the hollow ache in his own heart. He had been trying to hard to ignore it, and focusing on Emil's suffering had made that easier. But it had been three days now since he had felt his gods.

Just as when he had begged them for answers, just as when he had cursed their names, there had been no sign in either himself or the world around him that anyone cared whatsoever. The silence was echoing and terrifying. The longer it went on, the more he began to wonder if any of the messages he'd thought he'd gotten from the gods in the past had been real. Had he ever been listening to anyone else, or had he simply been interpreting the "signs" as he wanted? But something moved the greater world around him. Something gave him the power he could wield to call the wind or push back the waters. Where did his magic come from then? Would the "gods" bestow such power on anyone, regardless of whether that person was worthy or not?

If that were so, then Lalli could not understand what he had struggled and suffered so long for. If power was simply there for the taking and no greater consciousness was judging him as worthy or not, what was to stop any mage from seizing the power to shape the world as he saw fit? That way lay the path of the kade and for the first time in his life, Lalli understood how one could end up going down that path. He never had before.

Lalli would not take that path. But he did not know where to find the path back to his gods either. Their silence was deafening and so he chose to fill his ears instead with whispered conversations with Emil, distracting them both with admissions and confessions they might never share outside the fragile walls of that tent. He let worrying over Emil occupy his every thought rather than worry about where he belonged in the world. He tried to let Emil take the place of all that he seemed to have lost, but as much as Emil was everything he had always wanted, Lalli feared--because he might not be all that Lalli needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had meant to get further the process in this chapter, but it's already getting kind of long and I meant to get it out on 12/13. (Only 55 minutes late!) So I'll go ahead and put this out there for now, and we'll have to see more of how Emil does in the next chapter!


	23. I Better Be Quiet Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _If I didn't know the difference_  
>  _Living alone'd probably be okay_  
>  _It wouldn't be lonely_  
>  _I got a long way to go_  
>  _I'm getting further away_  
>  \- I Better Be Quiet Now, Elliot Smith

**23**

 

When Lalli returned to the tent that night, Emil was lying under his blanket with his eyes closed and Tuuri was quietly reading aloud from the book open on her lap. She was the only one to look up and notice him as he slipped inside. She smiled wearily, but kept reading as Lalli sunk to the ground beside her. He leaned back on the heels of his hands, letting his eyes fall shut as Tuuri's soft words filled their cloth-walled haven.

Her voice was scratchy and he wondered if she truly had been reading aloud to Emil all day. Lalli didn't even know if Emil was awake or asleep, but Tuuri still didn't stop her recitation. Maybe she'd found it was comforting to Emil to hear another human voice. Maybe the constant stream of syllables was the only thing keeping Emil's eyes shut in rest. Lalli felt himself begin to drift as well, his mind tugged insistently away from the Swedish words by sleep's clinging hold.

He jerked awake when he fell into Tuuri, his shoulder colliding with hers. Blinking in shock, Lalli rubbed at his eyes and straightened up. Tuuri closed the book firmly and set it aside. "Okay," she whispered in Finnish, "that's clearly a sign that you need me to get out of here so that you can get some sleep yourself." Lalli nodded. He wasn't going to disagree with what was true. But as she was gathering up her things to go, an unexpected voice called out to them from outside the tent.

"Can I enter?"

The awkward Swedish words had been spoken by Teemu, and the older cleanser lifted the tent flap to peer inside from where he was crouched in the path between tents. His brows inched up when he saw that both Lalli and Tuuri were also in the small tent, but he seemed more relieved than anything else to see them, probably since it would save him from a conversation in halting Swedish. "So you two are keeping an eye on our visitor?" he asked in Finnish. "How is he doing?"

Tuuri took the initiative to respond. "He's been pretty under the weather, but I'm sure he'll recover soon. Still it's probably best that he stay isolated for another day or two at least, to keep anything from spreading around the camp if we can."

Teemu nodded, studying the Swede from a distance. Emil still hadn't opened his eyes, so it seemed he truly was asleep. He looked miserable even in sleep, though, with his greasy hair sticking to his pale skin. "You two be careful that you don't get ill either. You shouldn't spend too much time in here. Especially you." He was looking at Lalli. "We need our mages."

Lalli nodded solemnly. He had no intention of leaving Emil's tent, but he also knew that Emil's suffering was not in the least bit contagious, so he didn't see any problem with keeping his intentions from his commander.

Teemu began to rise with a crack from his old joints. "I will pray that Loviatar releases him from this illness, and Jumala sees fit to heal what ails him."

Tuuri looked touched by his kind words. "Thank you, sir. I'm sure we will be praying for the same." She looked at Lalli with a smile, but the expression faltered for some reason when she saw his face. Teemu backed out of the tent as Tuuri called out good-byes. She kept watching Lalli with an odd look as the three of them were left alone again. This time Tuuri didn't pick up her bag to leave.

"Lalli? Is everything okay?" she hazarded.

Her cousin gave a short nod. "Fine. Just tired."

"You would tell me, wouldn't you? If something was bothering you?"

He nodded because he knew it was what she wanted. But he knew better, and he thought she probably did as well. But she accepted the lie rather than push him any harder. "Or Onni," she said, as she begin picking up her things once more. "I think he was really worried about you. You should talk to him, if you haven't already."

"Probably," he agreed without committing himself to anything. He didn't know how to face Onni. What would he say?  _I'm afraid that everything you ever taught me was wrong?_

"Lalli." Tuuri sounded sterner now. "Talk to someone. Don't try to do this all alone."

_Alone?_

After Tuuri left, he crawled out of his uniform and into the old shirt and loose pants that he usually slept in, and he burrowed under the blanket beside Emil.  _I'm not alone. I have Emil. And he needs me. So I will be here for him. That's all that matters right now._

He looked at the man sleeping beside him, studying every line of that familiar face. Since Emil wasn't awake to know what he was doing, Lalli lifted one hand to run the tips of his fingers over the curves that his eyes knew so well. His touch was light enough that Emil never even shifted in his sleep. Lalli's thin fingers moved across his cheek, down the bridge of his straight nose, over the dry lips parted slightly in rest.

Lalli's couldn't even summon any anger. When he had first realized what Emil had risked in coming here with a bag full of illegal drugs, he had been livid. If Emil cared about him, wanted him, then why risk losing everything by breaking the law? It had felt as if Emil couldn't possibly want this as much as Lalli did.

Then Lalli had watched Emil suffer. And he had considered the alternative. Emil had told him how he tried to stop the drugs himself. He had failed, but should he then have not come? Would he have ever succeeded in getting off of them alone? If he had not, if he never dared come to Finland despite the risk of getting caught, Lalli could never have ended up where he was this instant: lying together beneath a shared blanket, his fingers and eyes hungrily absorbing every inch of the man in front of him. Lalli had had every intention of giving up on Emil. He had convinced himself that Emil hated what had happened, and he would have happily avoided Sweden for the rest of his natural days.

So for all that Emil had risked, and for all that Lalli might wish that things hadn't happened the way that they had, Lalli couldn't hold onto his anger. Never mind the drugs. Emil had taken the risk that Lalli hadn't been able to bring himself to take: he had come here in pursuit of a resolution between them, even knowing that it might likely end in rejection and heartbreak. Emil might be weak, but he had also been the braver of the two of them.

Emil would get better. Lalli would make sure that he broke free of this thing that had chained him in his misery, and then they would have three more months of long summer days together. And then? Emil would go back to Sweden once the project ended. And Lalli would watch him go. His part of this project was limited to just this first year. The Swedish government did not need mages to join their project the next spring. They had only asked Finland for her cleansers.

What if he went to Sweden? Not for the project, but simply for Emil? For forever? Lalli hadn't ever imagined that he might live away from his forests and his gods. When he had first gone to Denmark, every day had been spent counting down to the time when he could go back home--every day until he had started wanting even a single more day with Emil, that is. But he had known Emil would never be his, so it had been nothing but a relief to return to Keuruu after the expedition had ended. 

 _But now Emil_ is _mine._

Emil couldn't live in Finland. He couldn't learn the language to save his life, and he was used to the conveniences of Sweden's safe cities. But Lalli might be able to survive in Sweden. They must need scouts, even if they didn't need a mage. Perhaps he could even get assigned to work with Emil's division, so they could be together during the cleansing season and during the quiet winters.

 _I won't feel any more lonesome for the gods there than I already do here._ The thought made him sad, but also filled him with an odd thrill. He could go there and be with Emil. And maybe it would be enough. He imagined living in a building like that hotel they had stayed at in Sweden: a place of stone and glass, with polished wooden floors and electric lights that could be relied upon to turn on with just the flick of a switch. He imagined going to bed each night with Emil curled around him and waking up each morning to eat breakfast together and then--and then--he didn't know what came after that. He couldn't imagine what the days would be filled with in such a life. But perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to find out, if he had Emil. 

Could he really do it? Leave Tuuri and Onni and the only life he knew behind? The idea of betting everything on Emil was frightening, but not as frightening as remaining alone here in Finland without even his gods to turn to.

 _Maybe you really are the brave one_ , he thought at Emil. He whispered aloud, "I will go with you." The words were too soft to rouse the sleeping man, but simply saying them set Lalli's heart racing in his breast. "I won't let go this time."

 

 

 

That night had been no worse than the one before, and considering how rapidly Emil had declined up until that point, even the small sign of stability seemed like progress to Lalli. He yawned hugely as he fumbled his way into his uniform again the next morning. Emil was sitting up and watching him with eyes that were full of him and not just pain for the first time in days.

"I still think I could at least be out in the field, even if I don't do anything," he insisted again. They had already had the conversation once. Emil was jiggling one foot like he couldn't sit still in the small tent any longer.

Lalli shook his head again. "You haven't eaten in days. You'd probably fall over if you tried to stand now, let alone being on your feet all day under the July sun." He studied Emil's earnest face. It was still pale and his eyes lined with angry red from the lack of sleep. "Have Tuuri try you on food again today. Build up your strength. Then we'll see."

Emil sighed, sounding much more like his usual self as he grumbled, "You wouldn't say that if you were the one stuck in here all day with nothing but the same old books to distract you from your misery."

"I would not be stuck sitting there because I wouldn't do anything so insane as using drugs," Lalli pointed out. Emil's dark lashes lowered over his eyes, and Lalli's mind went back to his thoughts of the night before. He sighed. "But then again, I never would have signed up for a two year project on the off chance that you would be part of it, either."

He knelt in front of Emil and waited for the Swede to look up at him. "You thanked me for coming back the other night." Lalli kept his eyes trained on Emil's. "Thank you for coming here to Finland to find me."

An uncertain smile tugged at Emil's mouth and he reached up to wrap a hand around the back of Lalli's head. Moving slowly, so that Lalli had every opportunity to escape, Emil pulled him closer to brush their lips together. It was the first kiss they had shared since everything had blown up the night Lalli discovered Emil smoking in his tent. The hesitant touch still made Lalli's pulse race and skitter with possibilities. But he did pull away after a moment. "Get better," he instructed the Swede. "And maybe brush your teeth. Then try that again."

Emil laughed and the sound kindled a bright warmth in Lalli's chest. Emil had been miserable and irritable for days, huddled in his blankets and looking out at Lalli with bleak eyes. But perhaps the worst was over now. Emil would be able to be normal again--but this time without any crutch. They would find a way through the nights and the dreams together. Lalli allowed his eyes to smile back at Emil. The Swede looked as though he was about to ignore Lalli's advice and was leaning forward to steal another kiss when Tuuri finally showed up for the morning.

"Sorry I'm late! I just had to pass off a few tasks--"

She broke off as Lalli sat back, putting some distance between he and Emil--where there had been only millimeters when Tuuri stepped into the tent. She couldn't seem to stop the silly grin that took over her face as she said, "Looks like you weren't missing me, though."

Lalli snorted, lifting his rifle from where it had been hanging on the back pole of the tent. He pulled the strap across his chest and crawled past Tuuri out of the tent. "Emil says he'd like to try eating today. Good luck with that." Leaving the words behind, he straightened up and took off at a jog. He would need to hurry to get a bite to eat and still get to his area on time. But those few moments of normalcy had been worth the embarrassment of showing up to work late for once.

 

 

Despite Lalli's optimism, though, Emil was worse again that evening. It had perhaps been too soon to try food again. They spent the night with Emil curled in a ball and biting back moans of pain as he clutched at his stomach. Lalli wasn't sure if he got more than an hour of sleep straight at any point during the night. The next morning, Emil said nothing about trying to go to work that day, but he did insist on trying to keep down some broth again.

The second attempt seemed to go better than the first had. When Lalli returned to the tent that night after updating the others on how his area was doing--and Teemu on how Emil was doing with his "illness"--he was stopped in his tracks by the sight of Emil sitting outside his tent. He was perched on a camp stool and had his head bent over between his knees as Tuuri poured cups of water over his soapy head. She was scooping them out of a large bucket she must have wheedled away from one of the cooks.

Emil was dressed in fresh clothes and when the last of the suds had been rinsed from his hair, he sat up and spotted Lalli for the first time. Rivulets of water ran down his face, spreading dark patches across his shirt. Out in the low sunlight of the evening, his skin was pasty and he had dark circles beneath his eyes and his arms were still trembling slightly. But he looked perfect to Lalli. He grinned back at Lalli, who realized belatedly that he was smiling. He modulated his expression to be a bit less obvious, but his voice still sounded undeniably pleased as he said, "Look who's up and about."

"I figured he would feel a bit more human if he got cleaned up," Tuuri explained, rubbing Emil's head roughly with a long towel. When Lalli got a glimpse of his face between flapping ends of the towel, the Swede was grimacing--but still with a grin on his lips.

"Feeling better today?" Lalli asked, crossing his arms and settling back on his heels to watch as his cousin manhandled his lover.

"Yeah," Emil said, his voice coming from beneath the towel. "Today was better than yesterday, for sure." He gently pushed Tuuri and her towel away, sitting up straight again. "I really think I can go back to the field tomorrow."

This time Lalli nodded thoughtfully. "That may be so. Hopefully you're still feeling this good tomorrow morning."

Emil truly seemed to have turned a corner, though. He was up half the night with restless legs and nightmares that jolted him out of the little sleep he managed to fall into, but when the sun came up the next morning, he still claimed that he was ready to go back to work. When Lalli pressed him, he did admit that he still felt achy and jittery, but he insisted that it was so much better than what had come before that it felt like nothing at all. And so they set out together again for the first time in days.

When Lalli collected a bowl of oats from the food line, Emil took one as well. He only took one bite for every three or four that Lalli took, but he seemed able to keep the bland food down. Tuuri spotted them when she came to get her own breakfast and gave Lalli a questioning look. He nodded and raised his fingers to tell her that she was off the hook for the day. A few of Emil's fellow Swedes came by to ask how he was doing or slap him teasingly on the back for taking a "vacation" while the rest of them kept working hard. But surely no one doubted that he had been ill. He still looked haggard and when he headed to the front with Lalli, it was with more of a shuffle than a walk.

Yet he joined his cleansers in the field. He mostly oversaw their work, from time to time dropping down to sit on one of the fresh stumps when he got too tired. But he was back and on his way to recovering. Lalli watched him throughout the day, his focus in tatters. He'd already been having a hard time keeping his attention on his work with how little sleep he had been getting beside Emil each night, but now he had the extra distraction of wanting to watch how Emil was actually doing when he was there in the same field.

He was absently staring at the Swedish captain's back and trying to ignore the headache that had been plaguing him on and off for the past few days when he saw the movement. It took his brain a moment to realize what it was he was seeing--which in and of itself was worrying enough. Then his sluggish mind seemed to snap into focus as he understood that the shape moving through the scrub was some sort of beast. He hadn't been praying, he hadn't been paying attention, and now a beast was heading right for the Swedish cleansers working at the northern edge of the area.

Everything sharpened into painfully bright clarity as the magnitude of his mistake became clear. He had failed to do his job--and he still failing with every millisecond that crept by. No runo came to him. He couldn't think of a single word or command. All of the hundreds of songs he had been forced to memorize as a boy, and the spontaneous prayers that he had been trained to come up with on the spot, had abandoned him as surely as the gods seemed to have. Lalli had nothing left to strike out with but himself--and so he forced his luonto out of his body, sagging back on the spot as he sent it roaring across the field to where the cleansers had no idea of their danger.

The lynx streaked through the trampled grasses and slammed into the beast, slicing through it with a force that sent chunks of diseased flesh flying up into the air. The cleansers noticed then, exclaiming in alarm and scrambling back away from the carnage that had exploded without warning mere meters away. As Lalli sunk to one knee, he distantly thought through his shock,  _That was stupid. Could've just used the rifle._

He took quick, shallow breaths as he struggled to keep the black from obscuring his vision. It was trying to eat up the scene in front of him and Lalli forced it back, gritting his teeth as he clung to consciousness. _Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!_ He should have known better than to try something like this when he was already operating on almost no sleep. He forced himself back up to his feet and toward the beast's remains. When he arrived at the pile of shredded flesh, though, he let himself drop back down to his knees. There were dark spots dancing in front of his eyes, but he still noticed Emil checking on the closest cleansers. Then, with one last slap on the shoulder for his cleansers, Emil came running his way.

" _Lalli_." Emil breathed his name as though it were a holy word. "Are you okay? What happened?"

Lalli shook his head, but he let Emil pull him back up to his feet. "I messed up," he muttered as he pulled away to stand on his own. He couldn't lean on Emil now. They might both end up on the ground. "I wasn't paying attention."

Emil's face twisted. "Because of me. Because of all this."

"No. Because of me," Lalli snapped back. "Because I couldn't even--" He broke off, not willing to say any more.

"You couldn't what?"

Lalli clamped his lips shut. When Emil showed no sign of turning away, he growled, "There's still work to be done."

"And it's not like I'm helping with it anyway," Emil pointed out. He did turn, though, to make sure that his cleansers were getting back to their respective tasks. The few who had still been staring in their direction got a few words shouted in their direction. Then they were as alone as they could be while working among the crowd of fifty-odd cleansers. "What's going on, Lalli?"

Lalli squeezed his eyes shut. He'd made a mistake. Not just in failing to attend to his job today. He had been mistaken to think that he could continue this way. He couldn't run away and live without his gods. Not even to be with Emil. He couldn't function like this. He didn't want to.

"I lost my way," he said softly.

Emil stepped closer, leaning into him in a way that probably wouldn't help any speculation about the two of them and the way that Emil hadn't been seen once without Lalli for days. "What do you mean? What's wrong?"

 _Everything._ Lalli still didn't dare open his eyes. He thought a long time before he finally began speaking, and when he did, he started at the beginning.

"I spent a long time telling myself that I had to give up on you, because I thought that was what my gods wanted."

"You thought your gods," Emil asked unsurely, "wouldn't want you to be with me?" The sudden change of topic was probably baffling to him. Lalli considered putting the conversation off, but he was afraid he wouldn't have the nerve to say any of this after the shock had faded.

He squeezed his eyes more tightly shut, his brow furrowing. "I thought that then. I thought...that what happened in December was a lesson from them. That they had given me that one night so that I would give up after I saw how miserable it had made you."

He felt Emil take him by the arm and he finally opened his eyes. He drew back slightly and Emil let him go, respecting his need for space. "That was the only way I could make sense of things then. And when you came here, I thought it was some kind of test--or punishment." Lalli frowned as he looked away toward the water that could be clearly seen now between the remaining trees. "If it was a test, I failed it. I couldn't keep my resolve around you."

"Can I mention once more how glad I am about that?" Emil's weak teasing only made Lalli feel worse, though.

"I began to doubt everything. Why you were here, what I was supposed to do, what the gods wanted. Then Onni told me I'd been wrong, and I didn't know what to believe anymore. Onni taught me everything I know. How could he be wrong?"

This time Emil didn't interrupt with any jokes. He bit his lip as they stood still among the activity that continued on in the field: axes ringing out, wood cracking, hammers thwacking against wood where new walls were going up. "That was when I went to you," Lalli admitted. "Onni had tried to convince me that the gods wouldn't punish me. That the gods would want me to be happy. So I went to your tent."

He looked at Emil and could tell that the Swede was also remembering what had happened that night. He looked like he would have liked to grab Lalli to him again then and there. Part of Lalli wanted that, too, but he still wasn't ready for that kind of gesture. He kept Emil back with a hard look, and Emil seemed to understand his meaning.

"Then I found out about your...problem." Lalli brushed his hair back from his face, running both hands over his head as he shoved the loose strands back. "It was like the gods were confirming what I'd always feared. That I could never have you. Even if they were punishing me, even if I'd brought it upon myself--I was so angry that I lashed back. I cursed my gods and turned my back on them. And they did nothing."

Emil glanced around once, but still no one seemed inclined to bother them as they talked. "What do you mean? Were you expecting them to strike you down where you stood or something?" He sounded a bit nervous as he asked, "Is that something your gods often do to people?"

Lalli blinked. "No. But I expected _something_ to happen. Some sign. An omen. A feeling. Anything. But I've only felt empty since that night. I can't feel the gods at all any longer." He gripped his own elbows tightly. "I begin to wonder if I ever felt them at all."

"So that's what happened today?" Emil asked, jumping to the right conclusions for once. "Your gods didn't answer you? You couldn't use your magic?"

"I couldn't even remember how to call out to them. I couldn't even make myself believe they were real to call upon." Lalli was amazed by the words coming out of his mouth. He wouldn't have dared say them to any of his countrymen. They were blasphemy. Even someone like Tuuri, to whom the gods were just some vague entities to toss a few words at when you wanted to make a wish, would have been shocked to hear him say something like this. He certainly couldn't imagine saying these words to Onni.

Emil opened and closed his mouth a few times before he croaked out, "Um, Lalli, I'm pretty sure your gods are real."

Lalli gaped at him. " _What?_ "

The Swede shrugged helplessly. "Look, I don't know how else to explain the things you can do. You can do magic, Lalli. Actual magic." He chucked Lalli under the chin lightly. "That has to come from somewhere."

"That doesn't prove that the gods gave it to me."

"Well, I can't do magic, can I? So someone seems to be picking and choosing. If not a god, then who?"

Lalli snapped in frustration, "You don't understand."

"No, I probably don't," Emil admitted. "So explain it to me."

How could he explain how terrifying the silence of his gods felt to someone who had no gods of his own to lose? Even if he was good with words, which Lalli wasn't, he didn't know he could describe what their loss meant. How alone and adrift he felt.

Emil caught Lalli's hand, shielding the sight with his body so that no one else would see it but not willing this time to let go. "Explain it to me, Lalli. I want to understand. I want to help you for once, if I can."

Lalli gripped reflexively at the fingers squeezing his, and he wondered if Emil really could understand, if he just found the right words.  _I hope so. Because I want him to._ And so Lalli decided to talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still alive, but suffering from a head cold that gives me so much sympathy for Emil. My back aches. My eyeballs ache. I think my brain aches. Took a handful of diphenhydramine last night to try to sleep, and still woke up a dozen times. So, uh, write what you know, I guess?


	24. Everything's Okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Everything's okay_  
>  _I'm looking for you now_  
>  _Down here by the bay_  
>  _Where the water pounds_  
>  _Up against the wall_  
>  _That I'm coming to_  
>  _Because I can't stay away from you_  
>  \- Everything's Okay, Elliot Smith

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now for something a little different...

**24**

 

Emil followed after Lalli like a shadow, only noisier. The Swede's physical recovery was nearly complete, but even at his best, he had never mastered moving through the wilds without lumbering as clumsily as a bear. The thought made Lalli smile on this day of all days. And it was comforting, at least, to know beyond a doubt that Emil was there behind him. Lalli hoped he had made the right choice in bringing Emil with him. After so long spent in doubt and misery, Lalli had made his decision: he needed his gods to accept Emil as a part of his life. He wasn't willing to give up one for the other any longer. He shifted the strap of his rifle and continued through the leafy ferns brushing against his knees.

"Do you think this is good?"

Emil's question caused Lalli to turn back and glance at him. Emil was holding up a sprig of wildflowers that he had picked from among the ferns. They were a pale violet, like the sky at twilight. Lalli nodded. "If it pleases you, it may please Otso."

He watched Emil uncertainly add the blooms to the strange collection he clutched. He already held several flowers he had found along the route, a fragrant sprig of greenery, and a bleached and gnarled branch he had picked up near the water. Lalli carried food for the gods and for Otso in the bag slung across his torso. Offerings were traditional for a festival like Karhunpäivä.

All of the project members had the day off for the holidays. The mages and the more devout Finns would all be scattered throughout the trees and over the hills to make their offerings to the great bear and the gods of the forest. But most of the Finnish cleansers would simply enjoy the extra day off and be glad for the break, as the Swedes were probably doing. There would be a particularly fine spread prepared by the cooks at the camp--though Emil and Lalli would not be around to partake in it.

Lalli turned back to the tumbled rocks of the gorge as they continued their climb up toward the high cliffs looming above them. He still hadn't found a place that called to him, but he trusted his feet and they were leading him onto higher ground.

 

 

 

It hadn't been as bad as Lalli had feared. Emil had listened with patience and gentle questions, to Lalli's own surprise, when Lalli tried to explain his loss to his lover. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting. Maybe he'd thought Emil wouldn't appreciate how much it meant to him. Maybe he'd been expecting a scolding, which is what he had feared he would get from Onni. But he and Emil had sat opposite of one another in the small tent, watching one another in the golden light of the lantern's flame, and Emil had let Lalli bare his soul in his own slow, halting words.

Emil had held Lalli's hands. He had asked what Lalli wanted to do, and Lalli had told him what it was he had decided: he needed to try to find his gods once more and make peace with them. "That's not really something I can help you with," Emil had admitted. "But my guess would be that Onni can."

Lalli had been afraid to go to Onni and tell him everything, but Emil had kept pushing little by little until he had given in. And Onni had been relieved to see Lalli show up on his borders once again, and had welcomed his cousin into his dreamspace. They had spoken for a long time that first night, and the nights that followed--though their conversations were often cut short when Lalli was expelled from his dreams by the restless man sleeping beside him. And at last Lalli had arrived at a plan.

 

 

 

Lalli didn't feel a connection to the high peak as he might have in the past, but it was the sort of place he thought he  _should_ feel connected to. Everything was still beneath the gentle breeze that set the boughs overhead swaying and whispering. The land stretched away before him as it must appear to Tapio himself. Something could happen here. There was a static haze running over his skin. Maybe it was the väki reaching out to him, though he had been so deaf to their songs lately. His heart beat a little harder.

He and Emil were standing atop a precipice, and the pale cliffs dropped away before them. All around the hills of Kolvananauuro rose up and nestled together, covered with green pines that stood at attention like rows of watchful sentinels. Lalli took in a deep breath. It was right to have come so far. When the other camp mages had asked his plans and he'd told them that he meant to visit the valley, they had tried to tell him that any of the nearby hills were good enough. But this was better.

Kneeling down, Lalli slipped the bag from his shoulder and set it on the ground, along with his rifle. Emil knelt across from him in the sunny grass, watching without comment as Lalli unpacked the offerings he had brought from Eno. Then he gently eased from his bag the bundle that had taken up most of its space and weight. Unwrapping the long cloth that he had nestled the instrument in, he drew out the kantele that he had borrowed from Tuomas.

Lalli wasn't inclined to use this kind of magic. It had little purpose in a scout's life. An instrument was just another thing to carry when a scout's primary focus was always to travel without anything to weigh him down. Playing and singing long synty took too much time to be of any use to him. They were the tools of healers and village mages mostly, and no good in the field or for combat. But of course Onni had made him memorize every last synty and runo in a mage's repertoire, whether it had seemed to have any use to Lalli or not. Now he had to admit, once again, that this teacher had been right.

He plucked at a string with his thumb and was rewarded with a high, bell-like note. Cocking his head to the side, Lalli struck each string in turn, adjusting the pins when the sounds seemed off to his ear. And finally he was ready.

Emil had laid down the flowers and pretty oddments that he had picked up along the two hour trek from Eno. He was sitting nervously with his hands on his knees, and Lalli felt his own self-consciousness grow. Even in front of another mage, he would have felt some apprehension. He had used magic in front of Emil countless times, but this was different. This wasn't a spell. There were no flashy effects to draw the eye away from Lalli himself. This was sacred, and Lalli would be exposed to Emil's undivided scrutiny. But just as Emil should be here for Lalli's gods to see him, it was perhaps time that Emil should see Lalli with his gods.

 

 

 

They had walked the 13 kilometers from the latest camp back to Eno the night of the 12th, making good use of the corridor they had worked so hard to clear with the others. The wooden walls had loomed on either side of the broad swath the crews had cut through the landscape and there was no sign of a single incursion from any beasts or trolls so far.

It had been after nine when they arrived in the town, having not left until after the day's work was done. The mage that Lalli had met months before on his first trip to Eno welcomed them at her door, leading them down ancient streets to the guest house they would borrow for two nights. It was a building that had been abandoned for decades, until it was aired out and prepared for the first wave of Finnish cleansers who had arrived in Eno early to construct the first camp. No one had used it since March, though, and Emil and Lalli would have the whole place to themselves.

"You still intend to go so far for tomorrow?" the woman had asked, as Lalli and Emil had set their belongings down inside a dusty bedroom. Lalli had nodded. He had sent a message to her in advance, asking for quarter in the town so that he and Emil could make the 25 kilometer journey from Luhtapohjanjoki to Kolvananuuro over two days instead of one.

The other mage had looked at Emil as he gazed up and around the room, paying no attention to the incomprehensible conversation happening in front of him. "Your companion... Is he a foreign mage?"

Lalli had shaken his head, seeing her curiosity but refusing to answer it. "No. But he comes with me." 

  

 

 

Lalli sat amid the rough, scrubby plants that clung insistently to the stone cliffs. The hot July sun beat down upon the towering trees that surrounded them. Lalli began by plucking a simple pattern on the five-string kantele, familiarizing himself with the feel of the strings and the music after so long. He had no idea when the last time he had played might have been. A year before? Two?

His fingers flicked over the strings, drawing out whatever tune seemed to fit the wind blowing the boughs overhead. Eventually the notes began to gather into the right pattern. The Karhun Synty was sung every year for Karhunpäivä, and even if he didn't usually play the tune himself, it was as familiar to him as a mother's lullaby. His long-ago lessons with Onni came back to him; the hours and hours he had spent being forced to practice as a boy during the quiet winter months, reciting the long synty till his teacher was satisfied. His fingers still remembered the song even if his mind didn't know it.

" _Otsoseni, ainoiseni_ ," he softly sang, his hands still picking out the notes without thought, " _mesikämmen kaunoiseni._ "

Emil had startled when he began singing. Lalli had noticed, but he didn't allow his thoughts dwell on it. He focused on the words as he told of how the great bear was first created and of the gifts of Mielikki. He let his eyes shut as his fingers and voice danced together with the summer breeze, spiralling up into the open sky above. The stanzas slipped past and at first nothing seemed to change. Lalli refused to give up and when he finished the tale of the bear's birth, he began immediately again from the beginning. He sang through the entire synty a second time, holding back the despair that he felt creeping up upon him again. When he reached the end of the long song again, he began a third time.

And on the third pass, something changed. 

 

 

 

Emil and Lalli had joined several of the mages of Eno for a late meal. That first feast had not been as elaborate as the one planned for the 13th, but it had still been a far more lavish spread than anything they were normally served in camp, where the fare tended toward whatever could easily be prepared in huge quantities to feed the 200 hungry workers. Lalli had been quiet, responding to the questions that were asked of him but not otherwise choosing to join in the conversation as the others spoke about the plans for the holiday. His usual reservation around strangers had been multiplied by the fact that he would have liked nothing better than to retreat to a private haven somewhere to worry on his own about what might happen the next day.

He had watched Emil from the corner of his eyes, knowing that the Swede must be as uncomfortable as he was. Emil could not have understood a word of what was being spoken around him for the hour-long meal. But Emil's good nature had allowed him to look from one speaker to the next with an expression of benign interest, as though there was something entertaining in listening to nonsense flow around you without cease.

Lalli had been happy to watch Emil watching the others. There'd been too many times in the past several weeks when he had caught Emil still looking bleak and worn. Lalli had understood that the process of ridding himself of the drugs he'd depended on wasn't easy on Emil, and that it wasn't fully over yet. Perhaps it never would be. But he had come to feel something that he thought had to be pride when he saw Emil now. Perhaps the man had stumbled, but when the time had come for him to stand again, he had looked up with unflinching eyes and dragged himself to his feet.

So Lalli had reached under the table, and slid his hand onto Emil's knee, giving it a fleeting squeeze as the conversation had continued to move around and over them. Emil's eyes had stayed on the others, but his lips had curved into a quiet smile as his hand had drifted over to catch Lalli's, weaving their fingers together as he had squeezed Lalli's hand in return.

 

 

 

"Are you doing that?" Emil asked in a voice as thin as the wind.

He had at least waited for a pause between stanzas, and Lalli smiled to himself before he lifted his heavy lids. He felt drunk with the power swirling around him. It embraced him so fully that it felt as if he would be held up by it even if he were to jump from the precipice at that moment, his feet never touching the ground again.

Emil's blue eyes showed white all around and he was sitting ramrod straight, like an electric shock had just run up his spine. Lalli knew that Emil had about as much magic in him as a potato, so he was probably only experiencing a pale fraction of what Lalli felt. To Lalli the world was sparkling was magic: it glittered and shone on the needles of the trees, it glowed from lichens clinging to the pale stone, it illuminated the very rocks from within. And Emil himself was caught in a kaleidoscope's starburst of light and energy. Lalli's right hand continued to trip over the kantele's strings, but he reached out with his left hand and slid it around the back of Emil's neck. There were short hairs standing on end along his sweaty skin, and they tickled Lalli's fingers as he pulled Emil closer with a gentle but insistent pressure.

Emil leaned forward across the small space between their knees, and their lips met in a chaste kiss. And the familiar presence filling Lalli did not disappear but swelled with even greater strength. His gods were with him and Emil was with him, and Lalli's heart seemed to expand till it was as vast as the sky overhead. He was not alone. He had been so, so wrong, and he had to close his eyes to trap the tears and keep them from escaping.

 

 

 

They had visited one of the saunas in Eno the night of the 12th. Of course the townspeople visited the sauna anytime, but it was especially important for those who would be celebrating the holiday to make themselves pure before the gods. Emil had suggested that he could stay behind at the guesthouse once he heard that it was ritual, but Lalli had shaken his head. "You could use with some purification," he had told the Swede, only half joking.

Emil hadn't needed to be told twice. The Swedes were nearly as fond of a good sauna as the Finns were, after all. The cleansers constructed saunas in camp each time they moved, but you had to be lucky or persistent to get a space in one very often. With some 200 residents in the camp and the need to bring water in from the nearest lakes or rivers, sauna time was a precious commodity. Eno was right on the shore of the lake, though, and the people had no need to skimp on long evenings spent steaming the day away.

They had sprawled upon the wooden benches in the baking heat, sweating and mostly silent. Lalli had been deep in thought about the next day, and perhaps Emil had been as well. His Swedish lover had asked him a half-dozen times or more if Lalli was sure he wanted Emil to come along. Emil had tried to assure him that he would stay with Tuuri, if Lalli still had lingering doubts about letting him out of his sight. But it hadn't been about the drugs by then. Emil had been clean for several weeks. The reason that Lalli had wanted Emil to come with him was because he needed to know if he could have both his gods and Emil at his side.

  

 

 

After he had said his final prayers and made his promises to the gods, Lalli walked back to Eno with Emil's hand in his. They crossed the crumbling bridge that spanned the lake north of the town and even when they came to the town gates, Lalli did not let go. His gods had seen him with Emil and they had accepted it. Lalli still had his own questions about why they had abandoned him for so many weeks, and there were things he needed to understand--things he needed to talk to Onni about and things that he would need to pray over on his own. But his greatest question had been answered.

He had not been punished for loving Emil. Whatever else he needed to resolve in his relationship with the gods, Emil would not come between them--which meant that the gods need not come between he and Emil. He could figure out the rest later. Now was time for celebration.

The feast and festivities had already begun in the town. There were bonfires that could be seen from blocks away, and Lalli led the way through the crowds of his celebrating countrymen. The songs and chants that filled the air comforted him now, though they would have filled him with unhappiness just the night before. The couple slipped through the festival, drinking and eating and touching and talking only to one another amid the many strangers who did not care about the two men speaking softly in Swedish on that bright summer night. 

While the feast was still going strong, Lalli led Emil back to the sauna near their borrowed house, his head full of stars and more than a few intoxicating drinks. They would spend one last night in Eno, before rising at dawn to walk back to Luhtapohjanjoki for the next day's work. But first they still had the night. In the dark heat of the sauna, Lalli looked over at Emil, who was sweating beside him with his eyes shut in blissful exhaustion. The familiar lines of his body glistened under the dim glow that came from the coals filling the pit in the center of the hut, and Lalli didn't know that he had ever wanted anything more than he wanted the man beside him.

Moving stealthily, Lalli turned and climbed atop of Emil, sliding his knees to either side of the Swede's waist. Emil's eyes flew open. "Lalli, what--"

His question was answered before he could even finish it when Lalli bent down to capture his mouth in a hungry kiss. The mage wrapped his arms tightly around Emil's neck and he delighted in the ticklish feeling of Emil's hands sliding up along his arms before crossing around his narrow back. He could already feel Emil stirring to life and growing hard beneath him, and his body was no slower to react.

"Couldn't someone," Emil asked between kisses, "walk in?"

Lalli bent his head to whisper in Emil's ear, "Then what are we wasting time for in here?"

The strangled noise that came from Emil filled Lalli with a fierce joy.  _That's mine. You are mine._  Lalli slid off of Emil's sweaty body, giving him a good view of his white backside as he disappeared into the changing room. By the time Emil caught up with him, Lalli had already stepped into his pants and was tossing his tunic over his head, not bothering to belt it. He gave Emil an impatient look that made the Swede fumble with his own pants, nearly dropping them in his distraction.

Lalli lifted Emil's shirt from the peg it had been hanging on and tugged it over that sweaty blond head, knowing that he intended to have it off again in just minutes. He took Emil by the hand and led him out of the sauna hut and into the night. They hurried through the empty streets back to their guest quarters, dizzy from drink and heat and the long day. When they arrived back at the house, Lalli slid inside, pulling Emil in after him and then spinning to pull the door shut. Before he could turn back, Emil had pinned him against the door, his mouth at Lalli's neck. One of his hands slid up under the loose tunic, while the other went diving into the waist of Lalli's pants. Lalli twisted about to hook his arms around Emil's neck, and Emil lifted him and carried him down the hall to the bedroom where their things and their borrowed bed waited. 

 

 

 

On the night of the 12th, Emil and Lalli had lain side-by-side in their borrowed bed in the town of Eno. The grass-filled pallet had given off a sad, musty smell, but neither man had bothered to notice. Having a room to themselves had been such a luxury after nearly four months of camping in the field that they could have been sleeping on a pile of old newspapers and had no complaints.

They had lain in a warm tangle that hot night, and Lalli's hands had idly smoothed up and down Emil's bare chest as the Swede had drifted in the comfortable twilight that lay at the edge of sleep. Occasionally he had come awake enough to spout some sudden thought or continue a conversation that had fallen silent long minutes before, always insisting that he had never really been asleep at all. Lalli had let this obvious mistake slide over and over, not wanting to break the fragile spell that they had wrapped themselves in. And he had looked at his pale fingers splayed across Emil's skin and smiled to himself.

 

  

 

Their clothes were strewn around the room wherever they had fallen. Alone in the empty building, surrounded by solid walls and far from anyone who could hear them, the two lovers indulged themselves in all the ways they couldn't within the thin cloth tent where they spent most of their nights. Lalli bit back his cries out of habit, until Emil begged him not to. He listened to Emil's shuddering breaths and moans, indulging in every little sound that belonged to him alone and locking them away within his memory, together with the feel of Emil wrapped around him and filling him as if they had always been meant to be one.

When Emil collapsed on top of him in exhaustion, his chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath, Lalli welcomed the crushing weight. It was hard to take a full breath, but he didn't want Emil to move. He wished that time would stand still instead, but he didn't ask his gods for any more favors--they had already given him more than he dared asked for that day. So he closed his eyes and clutched the warm skin of Emil's back beneath his hands and felt the sweat cooling on his skin. When their breathing had slowed enough for speech, he asked softly, "Emil?"

The one word was enough to make Emil gather him more tightly in his arms. "Lalli?" the Swede echoed in a similarly questioning tone.

Lalli kept his eyes squeezed shut for several moments, not wanting to speak and ruin this moment. There was a terrible pressure behind his eyelids. He didn't want to say the words, but they had been in him all the afternoon and evening. Every hour that had passed, they had grown heavier and they would only be more difficult to say the longer he held them inside of himself. "Emil," he repeated again, needing to say the name to bind them together. "I can't leave."

Emil didn't let go. He didn't loosen his grip or squeeze Lalli any tighter. He didn't move at all, but Lalli knew that he had heard. He forced himself to continue: "I understood that today. My gods may have accepted my relationship with you--but I still have my own questions about my relationship with them. I have to figure that out. I can't leave here and be so far from the forests until I figure that out. I don't know how long it will take."

Still Emil didn't say a word, but he ducked his head down to bury his face against Lalli's bony shoulder in silence. "I'm sorry," Lalli whispered. He would be sending Emil back alone to face the temptations that had brought him down this spring. He would be leaving Emil alone with his nightmares and his fears. But even if none of that were true, Lalli would still have been sorry. But he had to make things right before he could go. "Can you wait for me to come?"

And at last Emil spoke. "Always, Lalli." A kiss was pressed against his temple, at the corner of his stinging eyes. "Always."

  

 

 

It had been the night of the 11th, the last night before they were to set off for Eno. For once it had been Lalli who could not find sleep in their shared tent. Everything might change in the next days. Would he find an answer from his gods, or would he only get confirmation that they would never answer him again? He had turned over once more on the thin mat as he tried to find a comfortable position. Emil had stirred, looping an arm loosely around his waist.

"Okay?" the Swede had asked in a muffled voice, his face turned mostly into the pad beneath them.

Lalli had smiled in the dark. He had been glad to see Emil able to sleep again. He still woke up most nights, and sometimes had trouble getting back to sleep, but he seemed more at peace. "Just things on my mind," Lalli had whispered back, not wanting to really wake the blond beside him.

"Like what?"

Emil had drawn Lalli closer to him, bringing their hips together as he rubbed his face in Lalli's soft hair where it spilled over the mat they slept on.

Lalli had thought for many long moments, then said, "Like wondering if the Swedish army might need a night scout."

The stillness that had come over Emil had left Lalli with little doubt. His meaning hadn't been lost on the other man. "Or a day scout," he had continued. "I'm as good a day scout."

The breath had been crushed out of Lalli as Emil had rolled on top of him, peppering kisses over his cheeks and eyes. "Do you mean what I think you mean?" Emil had stopped long enough to let Lalli open his eyes so that he could search them with his own."Are you thinking about coming to Sweden? With me?"

Lalli had looked solemnly up at the face grinning down at him. "Do you think there would be a place for me?"

"There has to be." Emil had caught his lips in a lingering kiss. "If there isn't one, I'll make one." Another kiss had robbed Lalli of his breath, or perhaps it had been Emil's words. "You'll always have a place with me."

"Always?" Lalli had repeated, the word sticking in his dry mouth. His heart had been knocking against his ribs like a bird beating its wings against a cage too small for it. "That's a long time."

And Emil had slid his hands across Lalli's cheeks to cradle his face between them, his fingers tucked into that ash blond hair. "I sure hope it will be."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Too confusing? Hope not. I considered italicizing all the flashbacks, but thought it was too distracting. Hope you all could follow along.
> 
> And if you had any doubts, Part 2 is nearly at an end. Last chapter of it is scheduled for 12/25.


	25. The Last Hour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Here's the army_  
>  _That you mowed to the ground_  
>  _And the bodies you left lying around_  
>  _Talking it out_  
>  _The last hour_  
>  \- The Last Hour, Elliot Smith

**25**

 

The last hour was the worst, and Lalli wished it was simply over with.

The last week was when the reality had truly become become unavoidable. Every day had slipped by with the uncomfortable awareness that there would only be six more nights to fall asleep in each other's arm, then five more nights to know there was someone beside you when dreams were cruel, four more evenings spent in their private cocoon, three last breakfasts sat beside one another, just two mornings left to be woken by a beloved touch, and finally...one last boat ride to good-bye.

Lalli had sat tense and silent in their tent that morning, his knees tucked under his chin, and watched Emil put the last of his few things in the shoulder pack that he had carried from Sweden almost seven months before. It had moved from each camp site to the next along the journey, until they had made their final camp a stone's throw from Pamilo. He and Emil had continued to share a tent in the last two camps, both on this side of Luhtapohjanjoki and the western bank. Eyebrows had been raised and whispered gossip exchanged, but they had not been as important to Lalli as spending every moment he had with Emil.

The work on the bridge had begun before Lalli and Emil's trek back to Eno. They had reached the end of the corridor on the west side of the water and so all of the divisions of Swedish and Finnish cleansers had been working together to down trees, delimb them, and build them into huge, thick rafts that slowly began to extend across the wide expanse of water. But while they had been working at the same site for the entire month that the construction took, Emil and Lalli had hardly had a moment to spare for one another during the day. With enough other mages around to keep an eye on safety, Lalli had mostly been forced to run messages and interpret directions, scurrying from one group to another at Teemu's bidding.

He and Emil had spent some meals together, but not all of them. It had been important that Emil still kept up his relationships with his troops, and Lalli quickly grew tired of being a silent presence at Emil's side, following him around among the Swedes like some uneasy shadow. It hadn't taken them long to form new habits that worked for them. Emil would almost always take lunches with his cleansers, while Lalli preferred to grab something he could take back with him to the work site or eat quickly standing near the cook area. Dinners were eaten together more often than not, but only every few days did they take them alone together. The other days, Lalli found Emil at whichever table of cleansers he had picked that evening. If he couldn't face the social interaction when he finally returned to the camp after a long day, then Lalli would find a way to get his own food and retreat back to their tent. There had been no more need for nightly meetings with Teemu when they all worked together the entire day. And Emil had learned that if Lalli didn't join him for dinner, that he would find his prickly mage if he just hurried back to his tent. He always found an excuse to hurry back those nights.

 

 

As they had sat without speaking in the tent that morning, Lalli had been sure that Emil must feel his eyes burning into him, but the Swede hadn't looked up as he slowly stowed away his belongings. He had rolled up the blanket that had come with him from Sweden and then stopped, perhaps realizing that it had become Lalli's blanket as well. "Will you need a blanket?" he had asked, his eyes on the roll in his lap. "Where will you sleep tonight?"

Lalli had shaken his his head. "We will leave for the quarantine facility on the west bank of Lake Saimaa, before we can go back onto Keuruu. They'll have everything there."

And so Emil had strapped the blanket that they had shared to his rucksack. The sleeping pad and the tent belonged to the Finnish army and would be left behind to be stored away for another large-scale project in the future. Lalli had taken his own bag and his rifle, and they had crawled out of the tent so that they could disassemble it and leave the folded canvas and poles to be collected by the Finnish soldiers tasked with breaking the last camp.

A small contingent would remain in Pamilo, but not many. The bridge construction--and the entire project--had gone so well that they had been able to spend the last three weeks of the schedule constructing new walls encircling the power plant and clearing the old buildings of any potential threats. With the remaining troops in place to provide a guard and respond to any crises, engineers and skalds could flock to Pamilo during the coming winter months and begin repairs to get the ancient plant operating at full capacity once more, which it had not been able to do for years. There would be steady power in Saimaa for the first time in nearly a century.

The first wave of Finnish cleansers had departed the week before, as the work began to dry up. The remainder would leave this week. But Lalli and Tuuri were among a separate small number to leave with the Swedes, seeing them off from Saimaa in their final task as Swedish-speaking liaisons. At the edge of their new floating bridge, they had boarded the ships that would sail past Eno and back south down the lakes, and Emil and Lalli had sat together the entire boat ride, pressed together from shoulder to knee.

They had not spoken to one another during the long trip. Tuuri had talked with Emil, and interpreted between he and Teemu. The Swedish captain and the head cleanser had talked about what they could expect the next year, when Teemu would bring his Finnish troops to Sweden to fulfill Finland's half of the agreement between their nations. Lalli had retreated within himself and wished he hadn't come.

He should have said good-bye in Eno and let that be the end. There was nothing to be gained from spending eight more painful hours beside Emil but unable to do anything he wanted to. He couldn't bear showing his need for Emil in front of Teemu or the others. Even if it had only been Tuuri, he wouldn't have felt comfortable to do a fraction of what he wanted to do--because what he wanted to do was wrap Emil around himself and hide away from reality within his arms as he had used to hide himself beneath his bed when he was younger.

Instead they were now standing side by side on the shore of Saimaa beneath the cold October sun, watching their last hour slip away. Fall had dropped suddenly upon them with a cold snap, and when Emil sighed heavily from deep in his lungs, his warm breath rose up as a visible cloud before his face. There was a tangible pocket of space between them as they watched the things being loaded onto the large ship that would take Emil back to Pori and then Sweden. Lalli wished again that it was already over. He wished he could simply leave now. Living through the last hour had to be worse than missing Emil would be.

Tuuri had already talked about visiting Sweden again for Jul. She had told Emil that nothing could keep them away, and they had exchanged promises to meet in Mora once more. Lalli had said nothing to contribute to their chatter but in his heart, he had sworn to himself that he would make it happen. It was only a little more than two months. The three months of borrowed time that they'd seized that summer had passed quickly enough. These two months would as well. And he would spend the time with Onni to settle the remaining questions in his mind. Then perhaps he could go to Sweden with a clear conscience and without losing his ties to his gods. Or so he hoped.

The silence was thick around Emil, Tuuri, and Lalli. Teemu had said his good-bye to Emil on board the ship they'd sailed down on, wishing him good fortune until they met again in the spring. Then his boat had embarked immediately for the trip back to Eno again. He would remain there until the very end, only returning to Keuruu once the last of his cleansers had gone later in the week.

Emil looked over at Lalli. "We've still got half an hour," he pointed out, his breath coming out in a puff of mist again. He was wearing the thin jacket that been rolled up in his sack for the past six and a half months. Beneath it, he'd had to put on two layers of shirts to keep warm. "We could go somewhere. We don't have to just stand here and watch."

Lalli shook his head. He didn't want to go anywhere more private. It would be even harder if there weren't so many eyes to see them. It was easier to keep himself contained in public.

"Come on," Emil cajoled, before switching to good-natured threats as he suggested, "Or do you want me to hug you right here and now? Because I will, you know." Lalli stared at him unflinchingly, and Emil winced. "Okay, you're right. I won't. Not if you don't want me to."

"I don't want you to."

His words had been flat and unfriendly, yet Emil was still smiling a bemused smile as he looked at Lalli with knowing eyes. Clearly Emil understood why Lalli had to reject the offer, and that only made it worse. Emil understood so many parts of him that other people failed to. And he was about to lose that understanding again, just like he had lost Emil after Denmark. It had nearly torn him apart then, but he had only held onto the tiniest fraction of Emil's heart then. Now Emil had been his. And Lalli was about to lose the one person he had ever willingly admitted that he needed and the one person he remembered ever needing him.

He closed his eyes and counted the minutes as they crawled by. One...two...five... Emil jogged him with an elbow, forcing him to open his eyes again to glance his way once, before looking away quickly. The Swede had been studying him with sad eyes. Lalli pressed his lips together tightly.

"Plenty of people do hug good-bye, you know," Emil said softly, leaning over to speak closer to Lalli's ear. They both faced the large ship, watching the last groups of Swedish cleansers trickling on board. Tuuri looked at her watch.

"Twenty minutes until departure," she reported. After gnawing on her lip for a moment, her voice suddenly became brisk as she exclaimed, "I think I'll go have a look at the boat. Emil, make sure you keep an eye on the time."

Then she was gone, hurrying off to the side of the great ship. She mingled with the last of the Swedish cleansers, many of whom she had become friendly with over the long months of the project. Even the skalds and support staff had joined the rest of the camp during meal times. Lalli and Emil watched over her as she gave out hugs and smiles, cheerily wishing the Swedes a pleasant trip home.

Another minute ticked by, before Emil turned to him again and beseeched him. "Lalli..."

Lalli couldn't take it. He snapped shortly, "You should go. Find yourself a place onboard, and get settled before the ship leaves."

Then without even a last look at Emil, he stalked off into the small town and away from the docks. He hurried around the corner of the nearest building and sagged back against it to keep himself from falling to the ground. Lalli prayed to his gods to give him strength and watch over them both during this trial, now able to believe once again that they might take pity on him and respond to his plea for support. His head fell back against the wooden boards behind him, the October air cold on his exposed skin as he swallowed hard.

Emil came flying around the corner, going right past Lalli before he caught sight of him and tried to skid to a stop. The Swede nearly pitched over, then he flung himself upon Lalli, wrapping him in a bone-creaking hug before he could protest, trapping him against the rough grain of wall behind him.

"I'm sorry that I can't let you go without doing this, but I can't." The words came out in a breathless rush as Emil's fingers dug into his shoulders. "But I promise you I won't mess this up. I'll stay clean. I'll wait for you. So please, please. Come back to me."

Lalli nodded. He couldn't speak. His fists knotted in the end of Emil's shirt, pressing against the other man's stomach. If he held onto any larger part of Emil, he didn't think he could let go again. This was all he could do.

"I'm going to miss you every day and every night."

Lalli nodded again.

"Especially the nights," Emil teased, with a grin evident in his voice. He was trying to make a joke, but Lalli knew it was more than that. Emil would be afraid of facing his nightmares alone again. He would have no one left to turn to who would remind him that they weren't real and whisper reassurances to him and keep him from looking for comfort in any other way.

"Days, too, though," Emil went on, his hand wrapped around the back of Lalli's head and keeping it tucked in against his shoulder. "Maybe we should just call it 'all the time.' I might just miss you every second. I think I started missing you before we even woke up this morning."

Lalli didn't even nod any longer. He let that precious voice fill his ears and Emil's spicy scent fill his nose. Emil's warmth soaked into him and Lalli thought that Emil was still talking, but he didn't even hear the words. His mind couldn't think of anything as it repeated desperately to itself: _Don't forget this. Don't forget any part of this. Remember everything._  

" _Emil!_ " Tuuri's urgent cry broke through the private universe that Lalli had been shut away in, beyond caring who could see them or where they were. "They're going to lift the gangplank!"

"I have to go. I don't want to go. I have to go." Emil pressed a hurried kiss over his ear, whether that had been his intended mark or not. His words tumbled out as his arms squeezed Lalli until he might break. "Tell me I have to go, or I can't do this."

"Go."

The one syllable was almost too much, but Lalli made himself say it. And Emil tore himself loose and disappeared back around the corner as Lalli slid at last to the ground.

 

 

Tuuri came around the building and sat herself down beside him, pulling Lalli over to hug his head against her shoulder without a word. Her right hand smoothed over his hair over and over in a soothing caress.

"He made it on the ship," she said at last. "They didn't leave without him. And we'll go see him in Sweden at jul time."

She didn't question Lalli about what was going through his mind, and he let her press his face against her warmth. It wasn't the firm chest he wanted to bury himself in but her soft welcome was the best he was going to get. So Lalli sat with his cousin and tried not to think about how each second pulled Emil farther and farther out of his reach. With his face locked into a numb mask, he stowed away the memories that still clung to his skin like Emil's scent. Eventually Tuuri pulled him up to his feet.

"Come on. It's time we start our own journey back home. Keuruu is waiting."

They walked back to the shore of the lake, Lalli never turning back to look at the large ship now passing through the canal to the south. Perhaps someone was watching him from its deck or one of the many windows with their shutters still up for the day. Or perhaps Emil likewise couldn't bring himself to watch the distance growing between them. Lalli preferred to keep his last memory with Emil as it was: the warmth of being wrapped in Emil's arms, his vision filled with comforting dark as he kept his face pressed against Emil's shoulder, that familiar voice so close in his ear that he could still feel the breath on his skin now--a presence that had appeared and disappeared so suddenly that if Lalli wished hard enough, he could almost believe it might just appear out of thin air once again. If only he wished hard enough.

But he would not make that wish. Lalli had his own things to get done now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of Part 2, folks. See you in Part 3!


	26. Let's Get Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I don't know where I'll go now_  
>  _And I don't really care who follows me there_  
>  _But I'll burn every bridge that I cross_  
>  _To find some beautiful place to get lost_  
>  \- Elliot Smith, Let's Get Lost

**PART THREE**

**26**

 

Emil put down his pen and lifted up the latest letter to reread the last several lines again. As usual, a helpless smile rose up on his face as his eyes scanned across the blocky capital letters that filled the page from one end to another. He had gotten used to deciphering the scrawl over the past two months. Even if he hadn't, though, he had the lines half-memorized after reading them so many times. Lowering his hands and the paper back to the top of the small writing desk, he looked across the array of letters that he had pinned to the wall.

He still remembered the first letter. It had come directly to the cleansers' headquarters in Östersund ten days after his return, and one of the clerical staff members had brought it into the captains' office with a quizzical look on her face. "Is this you?" she had asked, peering down at the rough writing on the envelope in her hand. When she handed it to him with a bemused grin, he had looked immediately at the envelope to see what she found so amusing and his eyebrows had shot up.

The letter had been addressed to Emil Vesterström, but how could anyone but the smallest child ever misspell Västerström in such a way? Then he had seen the stamp in the corner of the envelope and his heart had juddered to a stop.  _Suomi_. The letter had come from Finland. He had torn it open, forgetting the very existence of the woman in front of him and looked past the lines of blocky letters cramping the page to the single "L" that was the only identifying mark at the bottom. The letter itself had been quickly folded back up to read in private, and Emil had thanked the woman to try to hurry her away again.

When she had left, Emil had tucked the envelope into his back pocket and made an excuse to hurry out of the shared office. The building was empty of anyone but officers in the winter, so it had been easy to find a remote and chilly corridor where no one was likely to come upon him. Only then had Emil let himself pull the letter out and unfold it once again, this time trying to make sense of the writing. He hadn't been able to repress a disbelieving laugh when he did.

Lalli's handwriting was not only a mess, but he seemed to use vowels with little discernable pattern, replacing ä's with e's and å's with o's nearly as often as he included them where Swedish spelling demanded it. Making sense of the sentences became something of a guessing game, as Emil whispered the words aloud to himself and substituted vowels where needed. As he had worked his way through the lines, they had turned out to be a rather utilitarian retelling of Lalli and Tuuri's trip back to Keuruu and complaints about how tiresome the quarantine period had been--and reading them had been the highlight of Emil's entire week.

He had caught himself smiling stupidly throughout the day, and his hand had drifted again and again to the folded square of paper in his back pocket. Every time his mind had wandered during the quiet afternoon, he had pondered what to write back. It was only when he had gotten home to his apartment that night and started rummaging through the small writing desk that had once been his mother's that he had noticed the fact that the envelope sitting on its top had no return address.  _Damn it, Lalli,_ he had thought to himself, with a familiar sense of bemused frustration.

Emil had still spent his evening drafting a letter back to Lalli, telling him about the return trip to Sweden and his first week back in his office. He had waffled over writing anything more personal, but decided not to--especially since he couldn't be sure the letter would find its way directly to Lalli. The next day he had gone down to the communications office at the headquarters and asked if anyone knew an address for the Keuruu military base in Finland. He had managed to get an address for the mage's office there, if it was still valid--the man who gave him the information said that it had been years since anyone had bothered to use it, given how little involvement Sweden had with mages. But Emil had hoped that if it at least reached Keuruu, it would eventually reach Lalli. Keuruu wasn't all that different from Östersund in size, from what Lalli had told him, so someone would surely recognize the name Hotakainen and get the letter to either Lalli or one of his cousins.

Then he had waited. The response had come direct to his home, since he had written in his apartment building for the return address. Lalli had noticed that detail apparently, and had also written in a different address in the upper lefthand corner of his envelope. When another letter arrived from Tuuri the next day, Emil wondered how much she might have had to do with setting Lalli on the right track. She said in her letter that she had gotten the address from Lalli and her cheery note had been full of glowing reports from the skald's office about how well the Swedo-Finnish agreement had worked out so far. Lalli's letter had been completely different: he had retold his day in all its mundane detail, rather like an official scouting report. It might not have been interesting or charming to anyone else--Lalli was by no means a skilled correspondent--but Emil had still read it three times in a row when he first found in waiting in his mailbox downstairs.

Letters had flown back and forth between them. It took three or four days for a letter to get from Sweden to Finland or back again. They sometimes missed one another in their haste, and they would have told a confusing story to anyone else, often referring back to things brought up one or two letters previous. Lalli's letters never included any mention of his feelings for Emil, but the fact that the Finn kept writing every several days, sometimes without even waiting for Emil's next reply, was all the proof that Emil needed. He knew that Lalli wouldn't bother to do a thing if he didn't want to. He wouldn't write so often to Emil out of some sense of obligation. The only way Emil could explain it was by believing that Lalli missed him just as much as he missed the skinny Finn. Which made every curiously mundane letter as precious to him as the books they had once risked their lives to collect in Denmark.

The letters from Lalli were joined by nearly as many from Tuuri and Siv. Tuuri would write every week or two, and Emil assumed that she had something to do with the fact that Siv had started writing him each week as well. In the past, he might have gotten a letter from his aunt and uncle in Mora a couple times a year, but since returning from Finland, they had arrived like clockwork at the beginning of each week. Siv never mentioned anything and so Emil assumed that Tuuri hadn't actually told her about the drugs. But whatever she might have let slip to his aunt to explain her new interest in his wellbeing, he appreciated the correspondence. He now had mail several days a week and coming home to his empty apartment had become something to look forward to, if only to check his mailbox at the building's entrance.

The letters from his three correspondents had gone up on the wall of his living room, slowly covering the dusky blue paint. He kept a few loose, though. Those with his favorite snippets remained on his bedside table, and when he woke up in the middle of the night and needed another human, he flicked on his lamp with shaking fingers and pulled them out once more to read them again. Seeing the words that Lalli's thin fingers had scratched out and holding the paper that he knew Lalli had also held in his bare hands helped him feel less alone in his echoing apartment.

_I spent the night out last night. It's been snowing again in Keuruu, but all of the clouds had cleared and the stars were out. There were so many shooting stars. I watched them a long time from the side of Lake Tarhia. I don't remember seeing many in Sweden last winter. Tuuri says it is because of the electric lights in your cities._

_Last night I had a dream about the expedition. Everything was pretty much the same, except I already knew Swedish. I could understand everyone. Except the Icelander. It was almost perfect._

_I walked through the birch trees and wondered if Sweden's forests would look the same. Mora was nice, but we should leave the city at least a little this winter. Last December I just followed Tuuri wherever she wanted to go. This time will be different._

_I accompanied some of the hunters out today to bring down some elk. The beasts have been quiet with the deep cold. It never warmed up again after the day you left._

_Do you remember the visit to Eno? I was thinking about it today. The nights seemed so short in the summer. Now they seem so much longer._

Emil had committed so many lines to memory, perhaps reading more into the spare words than Lalli had intended. But he didn't think he was wrong. He knew Lalli wasn't the type to talk about things directly, but his vague references assured Emil that Lalli was also thinking about the time they'd spent together and the time they would have at jul--which was only ten days away.

It was just a week until Tuuri and Lalli were due to arrive for the holidays. His letter was already too late to go out in that day's mail, and the next day would be Sunday. Nothing would go out then, so it would be Monday at least before he could post the letter even if he finished it. It was quite possible the letter would miss Lalli entirely, arriving after he had already boarded the ferry from Finland. There was certainly no chance that Emil would get a response to it. But that didn't stop him from wanting to write it.

He looked down at the paper again, which only had a few lines written on it so far. It was a familiar battle to keep himself from writing the actual thoughts running through his head.

_I still miss you every day. I thought it might get easier as I slid back into everyday life. It became normal, but I never started to miss you less. I miss you when I go to bed alone between my untouched sheets. I miss you when I come home each evening, and open the door to find noone there. I miss you when I wake up and reach out for you and find nothing._

_I miss watching you pray in the evening, so lost in your own thoughts, and wondering what it is that goes through your mind and what the world looks like through your eyes. I miss spying you in the field while we work--you always looked so full of purpose, like you were doing exactly what you knew you should be doing. I miss watching you eat beside me and the way you would tear everything into tiny bites, as if you just can't be bothered with chewing. Why do you do that? I wish I knew the answer. Maybe I'll remember to ask you the next time I see you._

But Emil didn't write any of those things. Instead he wrote about the latest news he had heard from Siv and about the jul plans. He was sure he had told Lalli all of it before, but he wrote again about how he would leave for Mora the following Friday after work ended. Feeling reckless, since Lalli might not even see this letter, he told Lalli about how desperately he had tried to catch the train to Mora on New Years' Eve the previous year. He did his best to spin it into a funny story about how he had tripped and skidded and run through the streets, causing anyone who had seen him to probably think he was going mad.

The kettle began whistling on the stove, and Emil put his pen down again. In the kitchen, he put the small potatoes he had already peeled into a deeper pot and poured the boiling water over them, placing that pot on the hot burner where the kettle had been. He propped an elbow on the oiled wooden counter and watched tiny bubbles form on the bottom of the pot and release, rising up around the yellow potatoes. There were enough to last through the weekend at least.

When left to his own devices, Emil tended to cook in large batches that would last several days. The potatoes would go with the large pot of stroganoff that he'd made the previous night. It was already warming on the other burner, and he picked up a wooden spoon to stir it listlessly with one hand while still leaning on the other.  _One more week._   

There was a sharp pair of knocks on his door. Emil looked in horrified realization at the hands of the small clock on the desk. _Shit._  His laundry time had ended nearly a half-hour earlier, and he had completely forgotten that he'd even had clothes in the machines in the basement. He didn't normally take laundry times on Saturday, but there had been no evening slots available after his work that week. Now he would have a basket full of wet clothes to haul back up three flights of stairs--and an annoyed neighbor to deal with.

It was probably the harridan from downstairs. She couldn't seem to satisfy herself with passive-aggressive notes, as every other resident of the building managed to do. She had cornered Emil on enough occasions to tell him how she felt about some transgression or another that he had lost count. Pretending to ignore her wouldn't help, Emil told himself as he straightened up and squared his shoulders. If she thought he truly wasn't home and had abandoned his things in the laundry room, they might end up in the trash bins or out in the snow. Better to just be a man, take her tongue lashing, and go get his clothing before anything bad had hopefully happened to it.

Emil grabbed his keys from the desk and hurried to the door. He was already apologizing as he undid the lock to yank it open. "I'm sorry, I know, I'm going to get it now--"

But then he broke off, because standing in front of his open door, with a rucksack hanging from one thin shoulder, was Lalli.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just another introductory sort of chapter, sorry. Time for things to start coming together!


	27. Bottle Up and Explode

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Bottle up and explode,_  
>  _seeing stars surrounding you_  
>  _Red white and blue_  
>  \- Bottle Up and Explode, Elliott Smith

**27**

 

Emil blinked, but the apparition didn't waver or change. Lalli Hotakainen was still standing outside his door as though summoned by Emil's lonely thoughts as he drafted the letter still sitting unfinished on his desk. Frozen in place, Emil searched those clear gray eyes for the first time since he and Lalli had stepped out of their tent one unforgettable morning nearly ten weeks before.

It had been an awful day. They had packed up the tent where Emil had spent some of the worst and best nights of his life, and he had been caught between the desire for that miserable day to go on and on, so that he wouldn't have to face what would come at the end of it, and the wish that it was already over, so that he wouldn't have to sit by and do nothing when he could feel Lalli humming with tense unhappiness beside him. Because Emil had felt unable to do a thing for the mage when Lalli had refused to look at him even once during the long trip down the lakes. Because Emil had understood why Lalli didn't want to meet his eyes.

Then Lalli had fled from Emil's weak teasing and his bungled attempt at normalcy, and Emil had run after him and thrown himself around the corner and gotten only a blurred glimpse of the Finn's pained white face before he'd been wrapped too closely around Lalli to see a thing. There had been nothing but the feel of Lalli in his arms, and when he had wrenched himself away, he had been no better than Lalli--he hadn't been able to bear looking into Lalli's eyes either. Not when he had to walk away from them. Not when Lalli had been the only thing keeping him sane for months. Maybe for years.

But now he couldn't look away and Lalli's face was tight, his fist still raised slightly from rapping on the door. There were no thoughts in Emil's head when he stumbled forward and grabbed the other man, not caring that the snow still clinging to Lalli's fur-trimmed jacket was soaking into his clothes or that he could feel cold water soaking into his socks as he stood in the small puddle that Lalli had brought with him into the hall. How long had Lalli been standing there before he knocked?

"You're early," Emil said in a daze, breathing in the smell of the cold forest. _Lalli._  Emil inhaled deeply and his fingers tangled in Lalli's hair. This wasn't a dream. Lalli was real and standing in his hallway and trapped in his arms. "What are you doing here?"

"Visiting you." Lalli's response was quiet and controlled as he held himself still within Emil's hold.

"And you're staying here?"

"I didn't book a hotel."

There was something digging into his palm, and Emil loosened the fist he hadn't even known he was making around his keys. It took half a second to remember why he was holding them, then he released Lalli as suddenly as he had grabbed him. "Oh  _shit._  I actually need to go get my laundry before one of my neighbors tries to have me evicted." He looked at the other man, standing there in his winter gear with a pack still on his shoulder. "This is--sorry. I know I have the worst timing. You sit down. Relax. It'll only take me a few minutes, then I'll be right back. Do you want to put your stuff down? You're not going to disappear, right?" Lalli kept looking at him steadily, and Emil realized he was babbling. "Or come down with me," he said on a moment's impulse. "Just down to the basement."

Lalli gave a slight nod and put his hands back into the pockets of his jacket, stepping away from the door to let Emil past him into the hall. Emil slipped his wet socks into a pair of old clogs that he kept by the door for quick errands like this. "You don't want to drop your bag here?" he asked before he pulled the door shut. Lalli blinked. It seemed he hadn't realized that the pack was still on his shoulder. He slid it off and slung it into the apartment.

Emil never locked his door when he was still in the building, but he felt an unreasonable urge to do so this time. With Lalli's things locked away inside his apartment, there would be no way the Finn could disappear on him. But Lalli had come all this way-- _how? why?--_ and Emil told himself that must mean something. So instead Emil left the door unlocked and led Lalli back down the stairs that he must have climbed only a short time before, this time all the way down to the ancient laundry room that dated back to pre-Rash days.

Lalli's footsteps were nearly noiseless behind him, yet their soft shuffle was deafening to Emil. The sound of leather soles scuffing across the concrete floor of the hall filled his mind until he couldn't think of anything else.  _Lalli is here._ He had dreamed a thousand times of the forests and camps where they had spent their summer, and of the snowy streets of Mora where everything had first changed. But he hadn't dared imagine Lalli being  _here_ in his home. It would have made the solitude of his life in Östersund unbearable. Since breaking up with Anna nearly a year before, Emil had had no life outside of his small apartment and the cleansers' headquarters. He could accept that life--but not if he let himself imagine what it would be like to have Lalli here to share it with him, as they had done in Finland. So he had never let himself imagine Lalli coming here or Lalli sitting across his dining table from him or Lalli sleeping in his bed. His fantasies--and there had been plenty of them--had been kept safely contained within the cloth confines of the tent they had once shared.

He was caught between wanting to pin Lalli against the wall of the basement hallway to kiss him until they were both breathless--and wanting to run away from the heavy dread coiling in his gut. Because Lalli's unexpected arrival had stolen the last few days he'd thought he would have to prepare himself for what he had to do. _I have to tell him what happened._  

Hurrying past the large booking board, Emil saw at a glance that one of his neighbors had indeed claimed the next time slot and he unlocked the laundry room with a sense of trepidation. When he saw that no one was inside, he sagged in momentary relief. The washing machine was already running with someone else's clothing in it, and his own things had been dumped into a sopping mass in the basket he had left in the room, but that was about the best he could hope for after committing the grave offense of exceeding his time in the shared laundry.

He snatched the basket up and backed out of the room, nearly running into Lalli as he went. "Come on," he murmured. "Let's get out of here."

Lalli followed him silently back up the stairs and into the apartment once more. Emil twisted the doorknob with the basket pinned against his body, waving Lalli in before him so that he could pull the door shut. Safely inside, Emil lowered the basket to the ground and only then did he turn back to his unexpected guest and dare look at him once more. Lalli was as remote as he had ever been, his face a careful mask as he waited for some sign from Emil. The graceless way he held himself told Emil that Lalli wasn't sure he'd made the right decision showing up here, but that was the one thing Emil wanted least of all. Screwing up his courage, he stepped closer.

"Will you take your jacket off?" Emil asked.

Lalli raised his eyebrows in question, but began to undo the toggles keeping his heavy jacket shut. When he had pulled his arms free, Emil took it from him, hanging the heavy suede garment from the coat tree by his front door. His hands smoothed over the jacket as he made sure it wouldn't slip off the hook where it was suspended next to his own, the arms brushing together.

Then Emil turned back to Lalli, who was now standing stiffly in just his long-sleeved tunic, bound at the waist and the wrists in that typical Finnish fashion. Emil moved to him, reaching out to catch Lalli around the narrow waist. He wound his arms around the mage, this time feeling him properly without the thick padding of the jacket between them. He sighed. "That's more like it," he murmured, leaning his forehead about Lalli's and drinking in the feeling of the lithe body pressed against his.

Slowly Lalli began to relax in his patient hold. After even longer, his hands hesitantly slid up and over Emil's arms until they were looped loosely around his neck. Lalli kept his eyes cast down, their heads touching lightly as his eyes remained on the ground. Still, Emil felt his heart pounding as hard as it had that first night in Finland, when Lalli had woken him in his tent and offered him the chance to seize what he'd spent months wanting.

"Have you eaten?" Emil asked, still not moving. 

"Not since breakfast."

"Hungry?"

"Starving."

"Should I let go then?"

Lalli paused, then said decisively. "Never mind. I'm not that hungry."

Emil squeezed him tighter for a moment, as he ducked his head down to brush a chaste kiss across Lalli's lips. But the Finn's arms tightened, trapping Emil in the kiss until there was nothing remotely chaste left in it.

Without breaking the kiss, Emil maneuvered Lalli across the small room until they hit the edge of the sofa, then he tumbled Lalli onto it.  _This_. The feel of Lalli arching that familiar hard, thin body up against him. He had learned every line of that body over the long weeks they had shared in the wild lakeland of Finland. He had dreamed of it since one mistaken night a year before had made him aware of wanting his best friend in a way he'd never imagined possible.

He had enough brainpower left to not completely crush Lalli beneath him, but just barely. Most of his blood had rushed south, leaving his brain rather starved at the moment. He knew Lalli had better control of himself than Emil had ever had, but the Finn didn't seem in any hurry to get off the sofa either. The way that Lalli's cool hands had delved under his sweatshirt, in fact, was making it hard for Emil to think of anything but the fact that his bedroom--including the large, giving mattress of his very lonesome bed--was just steps away.

"We should get you something to eat," he insisted when they broke apart for a much-needed breath.

"I'm not about to die from eight hours without food," Lalli threw back before stealing another kiss. The hint of wry humor and the familiar comfort of having Lalli pinned beneath his, all ropy muscle and angular bones, was proof enough to finally let Emil believe it: Lalli was real and he was here in Emil's apartment. Unless Tuuri was standing downstairs waiting to be let in next, he quite likely had Lalli all to himself for nearly a week.

"This is probably the best jul gift ever," he said. Lalli gave him a curious look, and Emil had to ask, just to be sure. "Tuuri isn't coming early, too, right?" he pressed worriedly. Lalli shook his head. "And you are planning to stay here with me all week, right?" Lalli nodded, nearly knocking their heads together. Emil's grin returned. "Then, while I do love your cousin, I'm pretty sure I was right the first time: best jul gift ever."

Lalli's lips twitched into a smile and his eyes fell shut. Emil nuzzled against his cheek gently. "Are you tired? You must have been traveling for the past two days straight."

"Not tired." Lalli spoke without opening his eyes. "Just...savoring."

Emil twisted to the side, pulling Lalli with him so that they were lying side-by-side without him flattening Lalli into the stiff cushions of the sofa. One of Lalli's long, thin legs was thrown between his knees, and Emil decided that savoring sounded like a wonderful idea.  _I will tell him. I'll tell him exactly what happened, and soon. Just...not now. Right now I am savoring._

  

 

Eventually Lalli's stomach had growled and Emil had laughed, and they had abandoned the sofa for the small kitchen on the other side of the sofa. Emil had offered Lalli the dinner he had been planning to eat alone, insisting that Lalli eat before anything else. As Lalli sat at his small table and nibbled at the boiled potatoes that he stabbed one by one with his fork, Emil tried his best to shake the wrinkles from his wet clothes and find places to drape them around the room.

"Is this how you always do laundry in Sweden?" Lalli asked.

Emil turned back to look at him, struck again by the sight of  _Lalli_ sitting at his kitchen table and eating from his flatware and simply existing in the apartment where he lived everyday. It took him a moment to find his voice. "Not ideally," he croaked. "I kind of fucked up."

Lalli's eyebrows lifted, and Emil saw him trying to hide a smile by taking a bite from the potato he was holding up on his fork. "Tell me about it," he ordered before taking another bite.

That was how Emil ended up telling Lalli about the booking system for the laundry room as he spread his wet clothing around the room. He explained how he had forgotten his laundry--and retold some of the worst horror stories he'd heard of occurring from such an infraction. He had a few of his own from his first years living in student dormitories. Lalli was snorting into his cup of water as Emil tried to impress upon him the sacred importance of the public laundry room, and Emil couldn't keep his smile repressed as he slid into the chair opposite Lalli.

 _I'm going to have to move_ , Emil thought to himself as he drank in the sight of Lalli painted gold in the light of the electric lamp that hung from the ceiling above them. The light pooled over his ash blond hair, catching the sharp planes of his face. He was picking through Emil's cast-iron pot of cooling stew with Emil's familiar flatware and the sight was so intimate somehow that it took Emil's breath away. For someone that Emil had never let himself picture in this room, Lalli fit perfectly into it. He fit so perfectly that Emil didn't know he would ever be able to live here alone again without him when jul had come and gone.

Scraping the pot with the spoon he'd picked up from the table, Emil tipped a mouthful of lukewarm stroganoff into his mouth. The food was harder to swallow than it should have been, but he forced it down. It wasn't the creamy sauce that had caught in his throat. "So should I ask?" He leaned on the table, propping his chin up on one hand as he watched Lalli nibble on a mushroom he had speared out of the stroganoff. Emil swallowed again. "Should I be feeling glad or worried that you decided to show up here early and unannounced?"

Lalli lifted a pale eyebrow. "I think that's a question for you to answer, not me."

Emil offered a rueful smile as they both skirted around the question. "I think I already told you how I feel." His smile lost its ironic twist, leaving it soft and fragile. "Best jul gift ever, I believe were my exact words." A ghost of a smile flitted across Lalli's face.

"Did you show up early to try to catch me by surprise?" Emil asked, not flinching away from the facts. They had discussed the drugs more than once during the summer. Lalli had seen him at his lowest--lower than anyone had ever seen him--and still he had stayed. He had even held his peace until Emil had recovered from the worst of the physical symptoms, watching over him with the detached calm that was Lalli's own particular take on sympathy. Then, once he had deemed Emil well enough, he'd wasted no time in telling Emil exactly how much an idiot he had been and detailing in excruciating terms how he would have his gods curse Emil six ways from Sunday if he ever did anything half as irresponsible again. "Did you want to see for yourself if I'd fallen back into...old habits?"

Lalli nodded slowly. "That was part of it."

"You can search the whole place," Emil said, relieved that he could say that much with complete honesty. "There's nothing here. I haven't used anything since summer." He saw Lalli beginning to relax and hated that he had to say, "But I do have have to tell you something."

Emil had seen the same watchful stillness come over Lalli in the field dozens of times. He was bracing himself for the trouble he felt coming, and this time Emil couldn't bear to look _away_ from his eyes. He kept his gaze fixed on Lalli, hardly daring to blink in case Lalli disappeared in that fraction of a second. As he tried to explain, he willed Lalli to  _stay._ To understand. Even though he knew Lalli had already understood so much more than Emil deserved.

"Nothing happened," Emil went before he could lose his nerve, "but it almost did." He sighed. "When I'd just come back. It was really hard at first...."  _Because I didn't have you_. "And then every night seemed to be getting worse..."  _And I didn't know what to do without you._  He couldn't say those words. It wasn't fair. It wasn't Lalli's fault that Emil was so dependent on him. "I ran into the guy who used to, you know, supply me with things. He offered me a little something."

Lalli wasn't looking away either. "And?" he asked in a voice laced with steel.

"And I took it from him. I brought it back home. I stared at that little packet and I thought about the nightmares that I would doubtless have that night--and I flushed it down the toilet." His eyes bore into Lalli's with all the weight of the truth, trying to force Lalli to believe him as though his wishes could do magic, too. "I swear to you, Lalli. I know I shouldn't have even gotten that close, but I swear that I flushed it without using a thing." Two days later he had gotten Lalli's first letter, and it had felt like Lalli's gods were rewarding him for doing the right thing.

"Why tell me then?" Lalli asked, his expression still not shifting from its hard lines. He still held his borrowed fork up over the pot, frozen mid-motion by Emil's confessions.

The question took Emil by surprise. "Why? Because--I don't want to be hiding anything. I don't want it to come out later somehow and for you to think that I lied to you or anything." He leaned over the table, like closing the physical distance between them would make Lalli see his way of thinking. "I don't want secrets between us."

Lalli's eyes flickered down toward the pot as he poked around for another mushroom. "Good then." He lifted his prize back to his mouth, but paused before biting it off the fork's tines. "I won't have to curse you in that case."

He popped the mushroom into his mouth with a sardonic look, and Emil felt like something had dropped out of his chest and somewhere low in his stomach. "You're not...mad?"

Setting the fork down against the edge of his plate with a quiet clink, Lalli fixed Emil with a piercing stare. "No. You were honest. Honesty is not something people should get mad about. Honesty is never wrong. But lying," Lalli's eyes darkened and the edge in his voice promised trouble if this lesson was not learned, "lying to me would be a very big mistake."

Emil struggled to swallow. Lalli's strength was intimidating--and intoxicating as hell--when he made threats. And as much as he might be advocating honesty, Emil didn't think it would be a good idea to tell Lalli in all honesty the kinds of thoughts that were filling his head at the moment because they had little to do with contrition and a lot to do with getting Lalli's remaining clothes off.

"I won't make that mistake," he promised in a breathless rush.

"Good," Lalli repeated. He jabbed his fork in Emil's direction. "Tell me if something happens. Tell me if you are having trouble. Tell me before it becomes a problem next time, and we will deal with it together." His eyes went to the photo pinned among Emil's wall of letters. Emil shouldn't have been surprised that the observant scout would have noticed it at once, even in a room full of unfamiliar things. Siv had sent him the photo of the crew, and finally Emil had been able to accept having it in his apartment and in his life. "We made it through Denmark together," Lalli said, his eyes still on the tiny figures frozen in time in the photo. Then they shifted back to Emil's face. "You're not alone here."

The words were much the same as the ones Tuuri had offered him the gut-wrenching night when Lalli had uncovered his secret. The two of them had been left alone in the tent while Lalli had disappeared with the last of his stupid drugs, and after Tuuri had pried the awful truth out of him, she had not offered him a scolding but understanding. "We're your friends, Emil," she had told him as he buried his face in the knees he'd drawn up to his chest. "We would have done anything we could to help if we knew you needed it. Please don't cut us out like that again. _Tell us_ if you're having a problem. Don't try to take everything on alone. None of us would have made it out of the Silent World alone--why should life after it be any different?"

"What did I ever do to deserve friends like you two?" Emil asked now, looking at the Hotakainen cousin that he had fallen for before he had ever realized that was what he was doing. For everything that he had lost to that terrible expedition, he finally understood that the things that he had gained were worth so much more. And now that he understood all that he had gotten from Lalli and Tuuri and Sigrun and Mikkel--and, fine, even Reynir wherever he was--he couldn't wish that he hadn't gone. He didn't even want to imagine what his life would be like now without knowing the man who was sitting across from him in this quiet apartment, lit from above by the golden cast of a single bulb, because Lalli was worth every nightmare to him.

"You survived." Lalli pushed his chair away from the table, standing and walking around it to where Emil sat. Emil leaned back against the rails of his own chair, looking up at Lalli as the Finn stepped between his open legs. "You saved me when I needed it. And you let me save you when I needed it. And you'll let me keep saving you from this, too, because I still need you." 

"Lalli," Emil whispered, his hands wrapping around the narrow hips in front of him as he leaned forward to bury his face against his lover's hard stomach. "You could never need me as much as I need you. I don't think you can even imagine. I'm hopeless without you."

His head was forced up by thin fingers twisting in his hair not at all gently. "I told you that I had come partly to check on you," Lalli reminded him. "But I told you that was only part of the reason."

Emil felt his eyes widen as he took in the implication of those words. Was Lalli trying to tell him, the only way he felt able to, that he also needed Emil so much that he hadn't been able to stand waiting even another week?

"Come on," Emil said in a rough voice, standing all at once and lifting Lalli bodily off his feet to carry him to the bedroom. "You've had enough to eat. It's time for bed."

There were no complaints from Lalli as they left the food to grow cold on the kitchen table, the light overhead still burning away precious electricity as they disappeared into the bedroom.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit, that took longer than expected. New Years was busy and then...I just got kind of demotivated. I don't know what happened! I think maybe getting close to the end took the wind out of my sails. Sorry, friends...
> 
> But at least this old live recording of [Bottle Up and Explode](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHpbovYq-Vk) finally got its chapter! Though the chapter ending up very little at all like what I'd first envisioned it as. Shoot, I hope Part 3 doesn't go off track like, uh, everything else in this fic has pretty much done for me.


	28. Angel in the Snow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Don't you know that I love you_  
>  _Sometimes I feel like only a cold still life_  
>  _Only a frozen still life_  
>  _That fell down here to lay beside you_  
>  \- Angel in the Snow, Elliot Smith

**27**

 

Sunday morning, Emil woke up in a tangle of navy-blue flannel sheets and heavy comforters--and pale Finnish limbs. Lalli's legs looped around his, his cold feet pressed against the backs of Emil's calves. He had burrowed into Emil's side, the low setting on the radiators not enough to combat the fact that it was the middle of December in Sweden. Östersund was relatively temperate, but it was probably at least a few degrees below freezing and neither of them were wearing a stitch of clothing.

Emil ran his hand up along the thin arm that was flung across his ribs, following it to sharp shoulder bones and knobbly vertebrae that he let his fingers dance over as they made their way down to the small of Lalli's back. It was still dark out. The sun wouldn't rise until closer to lunchtime than breakfast. But he didn't need any light to read the lines of Lalli's body as the Finn shuddered, somewhere between sleep and waking. The small whining noise he made in his throat brought a smile to Emil's face in the gloom of the bedroom.

"You can still sleep if you want to," Emil whispered. This was greeted with a snort of derision. Emil probably deserved it, since he _was_  rubbing distracting circles around the small dimples just above Lalli's hip bones. He forced himself to stop the caress, trying to show that he could mean the words, and felt gratified when his stopping invited a different sort of grumble from Lalli. He started moving his hand again.

Nothing else moved for many long minutes, as they remained loosely entwined in the warm cocoon of the bed. Unlike the summer, there was no need to worry about the time or hurry off to a long day of work in the field. No one would possibly arrive outside the door demanding that one or the other of them attend to some urgent task. Emil considered spending every hour between now and Monday in this very spot--but the empty ache in his stomach had other plans. He'd hardly eaten more than a bite of his dinner the night before, and he'd worked up quite an appetite during the long night.

Emil drew Lalli closer, still luxuriating in the feel of all that skin brushing against him. It had been exhilarating in Finland, but it was even better when they weren't sharing a small, flat sleeping pallet beneath a scratchy wool military blanket. He felt like asking Lalli if he knew any spells to stop time, but he knew the answer already. If Lalli could have done it, Emil was pretty sure he would have stopped time before they'd had to say good-bye in Saimaa. They would have to find their own magic words to make this last.

"So I told you my bad news last night," Emil murmured, his words stirring Lalli's hair where loose strands fell across his face. "Anything you want to tell me?"

He had tried asking Lalli a few times in letters about the task that had kept him in Finland. He'd asked if things were going well with Onni, if Lalli was finding any of the answers he'd been searching for, if there had been any progress at all. Sometimes Lalli had responded in his letters, but never in a way that satisfied Emil. Lalli would mention that he and Onni had gone together on some sort of journey, but not say anything about how it had gone. He would make vague references to progress but never say anything about what that meant. Or he would ignore the question altogether.

But now Lalli was stuck dealing with him in person, and Emil planned to find out whether the evasive responses had been a result of Lalli not wanting to write about such things in his letters or simply having nothing to share with Emil at all.

For one beautiful day Emil had been able to believe that what they had that summer could go on and on. Lalli had suggested that maybe he could come to Sweden as a scout, and as they trekked across the Finnish hills alone, Emil's mind had been sparking with possibilities. He had listened to Lalli sing and play his strange, haunting music, and it had been the most unworldly thing Emil had ever witnessed. Even now he couldn't explain the eerie feeling that had come over him. And just when they had been closer than ever before, Lalli had snatched those hopes away again, confessing to Emil that he couldn't go to Sweden. It didn't seem unreasonable that he should want to know if Lalli had found the answers he sought.

He could wait for Lalli, but he did at least want to know if he would be waiting months more or years. Soon he would be back in the field for another eight months, and letters would become a rare comfort. "Have things settled at all?" Emil asked softly. "Or do you avoid telling me anything because you can guess that I won't like what I hear?"

Lalli's thin fingers tapped an uneasy beat on Emil's ribs. He kept his eyes closed, but his brow was furrowed in the dim light. "What are you thinking?" Emil tucked the hair back from Lalli's face. "You can tell me whatever it is. Even if I may not understand everything, I still want to hear it."

The silence went on, but Emil didn't push again. He could give Lalli as long as he needed to find his words, as long as the mage was here within his arms. His hand played over Lalli's bare skin as he waited. It took so long that he was beginning to wonder if he had asked too much. Maybe breakfast should come first. They had days still to talk things over, before they would go down to Mora and he would have to share Lalli again with Tuuri and his aunt and uncle. They didn't absolutely  _need_  to have this conversation now. He was about to take back his question when Lalli spoke unexpectedly.

"I don't have bad news." His eyes were still shut as Lalli continued his nervous drumming against Emil's chest.

"Is that good news then?" Emil asked. His chest was tight was a sudden hope he hadn't even dared dream of the past two months.

"I don't really know yet."

Emil clamped his teeth together to keep himself from immediately demanding to know what that meant. Instead he asked, "So you didn't come early because anything bad had happened?"

Lalli shook his head mutely, the cold tip of his nose brushing against Emil's skin. "Then you really did miss me so much that you couldn't wait another six days?" Emil said teasingly. Lalli didn't say a word to deny it, and Emil's heart felt as though it was suddenly three sizes too large for his chest. "You did, huh?" he murmured, squeezing tighter as Lalli continued to sulk in silence. "I missed you, too. I might never let you go back to Finland now that I've got you here."

A doubtful snort was the only response he got, but Emil wasn't phased in the least. He considered himself quite fluent in Lalli by now. But the past two months without Lalli in them had been miserable, and Emil didn't look forward to facing the coming year without him.

He knew he should be thanking his lucky stars for where he was right now. A year ago he had been desperately running from his past and contemplating an unenthusiastic marriage to a woman he loved but was no longer in love with. Slightly less than a year ago, he had been alone and lost in despair, convinced that he had lost himself the best friend he'd ever had in the world and the only person he knew had always been there for him. Only six months ago, he had been dependent on illegal drugs just to try to make it through each night and day. And now he was curled contentedly around Lalli in a warm bed, safe and secure and sober. Yet for all that he knew he should appreciate, it felt like a knife in his gut to imagine how he would make it through the long year to come if Lalli was far away across a sea.

"I want to go to the island."

Lalli's sudden declaration knocked Emil out of his own thoughts. "The island?" he repeated. "You mean Frösön?" The island in the river where the airport had once been was the only place that Emil could imagine Lalli was referring to. It had been the heart of Östersund for a time, where the residents had retreated when the Rash illness had struck hardest. It had taken nearly a decade before the survivors had left the island to begin reclaiming the old downtown, where they were now.

Lalli shrugged with an annoyed huff. "I don't know what it's called. I just saw it on the map at the station."

"The large island to the west of the city, right?"

He felt the nod as Lalli agree, "That one. I want to go there."

Emil smiled indulgently. "Okay. We can go there. If I ever let you out of this bed."

"If you don't, you'll become the first target for me to test my magic upon in Sweden," Lalli grumbled. Emil laughed enough for the both of them.

"Am I allowed to feed you breakfast at least before we go?"

The fingers on his chest paused for a moment, then picked up their drumbeat once more. "I guess I can allow that." And Emil buried his face in Lalli's soft hair to hide his smile.

 

 

After a breakfast of oats cooked with dried apples bits and cinnamon, Emil and Lalli set out across the town of Östersund. It was nearly a straight path from where Emil lived off Regementsgatan to the bridge that linked the heart of the modern city to Frösön. Lalli looked about himself with a faintly curious air as they walked, taking in the sights of the small town.

"A bit different from Keuruu?" Emil asked, nudging him with an elbow as he kept his hands safe in the pockets of his heavy jacket.

Lalli grunted his agreement.

"Good different or bad different?"

The gray eyes that slid over to meet his were carefully neutral. "Too early to tell."

Emil's grin was unrepentant. "You can't fool me. You love it. You want to stay forever." Leaning in, his voice dropped lower as he suggested, "Here with me."

Lalli snorted. "You are very confident for a man whose home is currently covered with damp laundry." He peered over the side of the bridge, looking down at the park to their left. "What is that place?"

"Badhusparken?" Emil suggested, following Lalli's gaze to flat stretch of snow. "It's a park. Dates back to the old days."

"Why are all those people just...there?"

A burst of surprised laughter escaped Emil in a puff of warm fog. He looked at the park with fresh eyes, realizing how odd it must look to someone not accustomed to it. There were small crowds of young people and parents standing around in groups or sitting on folding chairs. Children played on large structures that had been built out of the snow, or worked on their own additions to the strange wonderland. There were people skating on the ice, and bright chatter echoed across the frozen lake.

"You know, you're painting me a pretty dark image of your life in Keuruu." He made it a joke, but there was some truth beneath the teasing. He had never seen Lalli take a single day off in the season they had spent together, and the little he heard about daily life in the military base where Lalli had lived for the past decade plus seemed to hold little more joy. The fact that it seemed baffling to Lalli to see people out and about enjoying a snowy Sunday afternoon at peace made something twinge painfully in Emil's chest. For the first time his motivation to convince Lalli to stay in Sweden was not just about himself, or even the wistful hope that Lalli would be happier here with Emil than at home in Finland without him.

Lalli's life had been narrow and bleak for too long. Regardless of whether Emil was a part of it or not, he deserved a life where days off could be made up sometimes of cozy lie-ins and leisurely walks and simple pleasures--and it didn't even require a trip to another country.  _I want you to be happy_ , he thought at Lalli in some surprise as he studied the mage pacing beside him.

It wasn't that he'd ever wished for Lalli to be unhappy. But this was the first time he had felt so strongly that he wanted Lalli to be happy no matter whether it also made Emil happy in the process or not. He certainly hadn't been feeling so generous when he had spent the previous spring imagining Lalli in a contented relationship with the nameless, faceless boyfriend that he'd still assumed Lalli had. This went beyond the helpless urge he'd always felt to take care of Lalli in Denmark, making sure the fey boy ate and slept and was kept warm. This was--well, perhaps it was whatever had inspired his own parents to spoil him so much as a child. He understood now the urge to shower someone in treats and coddle them and watch the wonder form in their eyes when you opened them to the joys that life could hold. Perhaps this was true love.

 

 

When they reached the gate at the end of the bridge, a bored-looking guard waved them to a halt. Leaning on a rifle that looked even older than he did, he asked, "You two coming on the island?"

Emil nodded, and the man scrubbed at his hair with one hand. "Been out of the cleansed lands in the past two weeks?" he asked with an absent sigh, not seeming to expect anything but a routine answer.

Emil shook his head at once, but then he heard a voice pipe up from beside him. "Yes."

His head jerked around and he gaped at Lalli. Of course Lalli would tell the truth--the honest, righteous fool. "He came from Finland a few days ago, so he was on the ferry and he rode the train up from Mora through the rough patches," Emil explained in a rush as he turned back toward the guard. "But he's a scout. He knows proper protocol for decontamination. And he is immune, and so am I. We're no risk at all, really."

The guard scowled and looked them over for several long seconds, before waving them along. "Fine. But don't think you'll get through so easy the next time."

A heavy sigh escaped Emil as he shoved Lalli through the gate ahead of himself, thanking the guard as they hurried onto solid ground again.

"You were the one who wanted to visit the island!" he hissed at Lalli once they were probably out of earshot.

The look Lalli gave him held not a hint of remorse. "So, what? I should have lied about safety protocol?"

"Well, no," Emil admitted, kicking the ancient pavement as he walked. "But..."

Lalli was frowning. "I can't believe that man let us through. Is that how the Swedish army operates? How are any of you still alive?"

They walked along the road toward the squat buildings of ancient red brick. Like the heart of old Mora, Frösön was a curiously preserved glimpse into the world before the plague had struck them. Towns like Eno had been pillaged and repurposed, but Östersund and especially Frösön were almost unchanged from a hundred years ago. Only far emptier.

"Östersund has a really high immunity rate," Emil explained. "Over 80 percent was the last figure I heard. The town's population was founded mostly by people who survived the first wave and holed up on the island. There hasn't been an actual case of the rash here in over fifty years. I don't think many of the people take the threat very seriously. We've got walls and electric fences to keep beasts and trolls out, and of course a well-fortified military base, too." He shrugged, glancing over his shoulder at the town crouching on the lakeside behind them. "When I was growing up here, I never even thought about infection as something to worry about. Not just because I'm immune, but because no one does here."

Lalli was silent, his lips a thin line.

"I'm sorry," Emil muttered. "I know it was different where you grew up. Tuuri told me about it before. How entire villages would just be wiped out in Saimaa..."

The distant gray eyes sharpened back into focus as Lalli blinked. "No. It's fine. It's just..." He shrugged. "It's just very different."

Their shoulders brushed against each other. "Maybe not for long?" Emil suggested in a hopeful voice. "Now that we helped clear the way to Pamilo, things could start to change. Finland could start putting in electric fences like we do here in Sweden. Create really safe towns, you know?"

Lalli's small smile was wistful. "That could be good."

He wanted to reassure Lalli somehow. He wanted to make grand promises about how Sweden would come to Finland's aid, sharing their technology and their manufacturing prowess to help save Saimaa. But he was just a captain. He couldn't promise any of that. He couldn't promise it, but he could try to help it happen. With a determined set to his shoulders, he asked, "So what did you want to see on Frösön?"

"Nothing really," Lalli said, letting the conversation move back to the present as he turned to the north. Emil followed his lead. Doubtless Lalli had the entire map of the island in his head after a single glance, Emil thought with rueful fondness. "I only wanted to visit a wild place," Lalli said as his eyes scanned the treetops ahead of them.

Emil wondered if Lalli was already so sick of Sweden's cities that just a few days had driven him back to nature. But that worry was set to rest when they hiked through the woods to the north side of the island and he began to get some inkling of what Lalli really had in mind. Emil watched without comment as Lalli cleared a small circle in the snow covering the pebbled shore of the lake. He wandered too and fro between the trees and the water's edge, bringing a few armfuls of dryish brush and branches from under the canopy. Then he began to lay the fire with an experienced ease, and Emil's pyromanic heart swelled with pride.

When it came time to light the tinder, though, Lalli did not reach for a firestarter. Instead he held one hand up, his palm directed toward pyramid of kindling and branches, and the entire structure was engulfed in sudden flames. Emil couldn't help a delighted gasp, and Lalli shot him a look. He returned it with an unabashed grin. "Yes, yes, Lalli. Feel free to roll your eyes at the fact that I still constantly find it amazing the things you can do."

There was a tinge of pink on Lalli's high cheekbones as he turned away, and Emil didn't think it was the heat that had caused it. He squatted beside the fire and held his hands out over it to keep them warm, feeding small twigs into the crackling flames out of habit as he watched to see what Lalli would do next. He wasn't disappointed.

Lalli stood at the water's side and began singing one of his Finnish spells, and Emil keep his eyes fixed on him, breath held tight in anticipation. When Lalli swept his arm in a graceful arc, water surged up through the ice that cracked and heaved. It followed the path of that gesture against gravity and up the shore until the wave sloshed right over the fire in front of Emil--and a good several inches of Emil's feet. His boots were as good as waterproof, but he was still sorry to see fire go. He grumbled under his breath as he pushed himself back up to his feet.

Eyes glinting, Lalli began another chanting song, this time holding both hands up to the clouds overhead. They weren't that heavy, but they did blanket the sky in a solid wall of impenetrable gray. Until they began to break up even as Emil watched, shafts of sunlight breaking through the holes that had appeared to fall down upon them on the lonely shore of the island where they stood. The winter sun wasn't as warm as the fire had been, but it did help.

"And I suppose you're claiming responsibility for that?" Emil said teasingly, as though his heart wasn't racing.

But Lalli shook his head. "Of course not. All I did was ask the gods to look upon us."

"And they did." Emil's eyes didn't leave the back of Lalli's head. "This is some kind of test for you, isn't it? To see if you could still reach your gods here?"

Lalli kept his face angled away so that Emil could only see the sharp edge of his jaw. "Something like that."

"And?"

He could hear the deep, shuddering breath that Lalli dragged in as he filled his lungs with the freezing Swedish air. "And they are still here with me. They feel farther away than they did at home, but not out of reach."

"Meaning?" Emil took a step around the sodden wood, frozen pebbles crunching and breaking apart beneath his boots. Lalli inclined his head to the side, as though leaning into the sound. Like he might lean into Emil's touch.

"Meaning," Lalli repeated as he slowly turned to meet Emil's gaze from the few feet separating them, "that maybe I have my answer."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shocking amount of time has gone by, and I'm very sorry for that. :( I wouldn't leave a thing unfinished, but I've been away in other worlds for the past couple of weeks and it's been hard to get back into this one. I went back and reread all the earlier chapters to try to pick myself up, but instead that just confirmed what I'd felt while writing...that Part 2 wandered around a lot more haphazardly than I would have liked. Alas.
> 
> Once again, this chapter didn't get as far as I'd expected it to. It was supposed to see them through Tuesday of this pre-jul interlude, and we're still stuck in Sunday afternoon instead. I guess I'll see if I really still end on the chapter I'd planned to or not. Either way, the end is approaching...


	29. Say Yes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It's always been wait and see_  
>  _A happy day and then you'll pay_  
>  _And feel like shit the morning after_  
>  _But now I feel changed around_  
>  _And instead of falling down_  
>  _I'm standing up the morning after_  
>  \- Say Yes, Elliot Smith

**Chapter 29**

 

They passed back over the bridge, the guard giving them a bored nod as they walked past.

"I had reached them before. In the days of the expedition. So had Onni." Lalli's gaze fell to the cracked road as he haltingly explained what had brought him to the island. The sun was already low in the sky. "I wasn't sure it would still work, though. Not after everything...this year. I had to try it for myself before I could say anything."

Emil felt a twinge of bemused frustration. Maybe it had been the right way to go about things; he certainly would have been crushed if Lalli had once again let him believe that he might come to Sweden to stay only to turn around and snatch back that hope. But he still wished he'd had a bit better idea what was going through the mage's head for the past two and a half months.

"And now?"

Lalli's gray eyes flitted to Emil's face and then turned up to the blue sky he'd helped bring about. "Now I guess we see if Sweden would care for one more Finn for this year's project."

And Emil didn't care if they were walking into the heart of downtown Östersund. He slung his arm around Lalli's shoulders and pulled him in to drop a quick kiss on his mouth before he reacted. There was a pink stain spreading across the Finn's cheeks as he shrugged Emil's arm off, speeding the process with a sharp elbow in the Emil's stomach. But Emil just kept on grinning as he ribbed Lalli back with a gentler nudge of his own.

"I don't think it'll be too much trouble to arrange. If worse comes to worse, we'll just lie and tell them that you're Tuuri. One Hotakainen should be as good as another."

The scandalized expression on Lalli's face brought on full laughter this time. Emil didn't even try to hold it back. He felt so light that his heavy boots might have been the only thing keeping him on the ground. He didn't know how they would achieve it exactly, but somehow he was going to have Lalli back in his life every day. He didn't fool himself into thinking that it would all be easy. Lalli was still prickly and reluctant to communicate his feelings and helplessly dense about so many things. But to Emil, he was pretty much perfect.

  

  

Emil had insisted that they stop by the ICA on the way back. Then he'd had to explain what the ICA was, which was a sort of massive indoor market. As for what it once  _had_ been, Emil knew the history: that ICA had been some sort of chain of stores found all across the country once. It seemed likely enough to be true, as practically every surviving Swedish city had at least a few buildings with the familiar red signs above their doors. But it was still hard to imagine that a building of that size had once been packed floor to ceiling with food, day in and day out.

The survivors in Mora had ended up gravitating back to the building that they all remembered from before civilization's fall. Without anyone really planning for it to happen, it had grown into a marketplace where people brought whatever they'd managed to grow, gather, or produce to swap--until a working currency had been reestablished at least. Sellers had claimed territory among the aisles, building tables and repurposing old shelving systems. Stalls had been built up and passed down over the decades, and now it was chaotic mess whose narrow twisting paths were as familiar to most locals as the back of their own hands. Emil knew, as everyone did, which of the three vegetable stands usually had the best produce and what the most effective compliments were to use on the fisherman's wife if you wanted the best catches. He knew what time to visit to get fresh loaves of bread from the Perssons' baked goods stall. He knew to come on the second and fourth Fridays of each month for the best chance at getting cheese from the family who ran a dairy in Svenstavik. They made the best cheese, but only brought new stock to the stall they shared in Östersund twice a month. 

He explained some of these secrets of the market to Lalli as they slowly wove their way among the lunchtime crowd out doing their weekend shopping. Emil was making for the little specialty stall that sold imported goods, mostly from Iceland. This was where he usually got his coffee beans. You could also get things like grape wine and at this time of year there were citrus fruits and other rare delicacies. That wasn't what Emil was looking for, though.

When they arrived in front of the stall, the crafty old man who ran it grinned. He knew Emil wasn't just one of the wishful window-shoppers who would picked things up and put them down before regretfully pulling themselves away. "Captain! Always good to see you. What can I help you with today?"

Emil grinned. "I _am_ running low on coffee beans, in fact. And do you happen to have any cocoa in stock?"

The merchant's eyebrows shot up beneath his grizzled gray hair. Emil had to fight to keep his face straight. He'd never once bought anything like cocoa in his years of buying from Fredrik at the ICA. But the old man was more than happy to pluck a sack of processed cocoa powder, grown in Iceland, from his precious shelves of wares. Emil paid for it and the coffee, borrowing a bag from Fredrik. Emil was a regular; he could be trusted to bring the canvas bag back the next time he came to the market.

Thrusting the bag toward Lalli, he guided the Finn by the elbow away from stall of overpriced delicacies.

"So I'm here to help carry things?" Lalli asked wryly, hefting the bag in his hand.

Emil tried to snatch the bag back. " _No_. That wasn't what--!" Lalli raised an eyebrow, tucking the bag behind his back and out of Emil's reach. The Swede huffed in frustration. "I just meant that it was for you."

This got a look of real surprise on Lalli's face. "For me?"

"I know you'd prefer something sweeter than coffee."

Lalli's feet stopped, and Emil had to pause a moment to wait for him to begin walking again.

"I should pay for it then," Lalli insisted. "You don't have to buy me cocoa."

Emil shrugged. "And you don't have to pay for it. I chose to buy it because I wanted to, and besides, you paid to come all this way. So let me buy you some silly cocoa and--unless you want two nights in a row of leftover stroganoff--you'd better tell me what else you'd like, as well."

And so they ended up going back home with two fresh fish from the lake, a loaf of dark bread, a slab of butter, a glass bottle of milk, and a package of crunchy cookies from one of the bakers' stands. Lalli had tried to protest that purchase as well, but not nearly hard enough to convince either of them that he meant it. He'd held the package between his hands as they walked back along the city streets to Emil's apartment, and he set it carefully on the kitchen table once they stepped back into the cool apartment.

Emil held out the paper-wrapped fish with one hand as he used his other to tug at the laces of one boot. "Can you put these in the cold cupboard?" he asked.

Lalli came back to take the fish with a look of silent question, and Emil nodded toward the cupboard on the exterior wall of the kitchen. He watched with a little smile tugging at his lips as Lalli opened the cupboard and stopped, apparently surprised to see the hole in the wall that let cold air in around a metal cap that was affixed to the outside of the apartment building. Emil gave up on even acting like he was bothering with his boots. He should stop dripping on the floor. He should go turn up the radiator now that they were home. But he let himself simply stand there and watch Lalli in his apartment and marvel at how lucky he was.

Once, when he had been a useless young teenager, he'd thought he was the unluckiest person alive. He had lost his parents and been expelled from the life of spoiled comfort that he'd grown up in, and being forced to actually prove himself as worthy in any way had seemed like greatest insult imaginable. _I know I took too long,_ he thought in a silent prayer--to his mother, to Sigrun, and to Mikkel, wherever they were. _But I am so grateful now for where I am today._

He bent to finally tug his boots off, then padded across the wooden floor to where Lalli stood by the table, his eyes downcast as he examined the writing on the package of cocoa powder. Emil leaned into him, his chin resting on Lalli's bony shoulder. "Thank you. For being here with me," he said, not bothering to explain why it suddenly seemed necessary to say the words.

The slight pressure against his chest as Lalli relaxed into him told him that he didn't have to explain a thing. Lalli accepted him as he was, flawed and rash and clumsy. Emil turned his head slightly into Lalli's hair, breathing in the smell of pine that wafted from the strands working their way loose from the messy ponytail. Neither of them said anything as they stood simply luxuriating in the opportunity to be where they were in this moment together, with no disasters, no danger, no demands on their time.

Finally Emil remembered that it was getting shockingly late for lunch and asked, "Do you want something?"

Lalli shook his head. "I don't. I have everything I want already."

 

 

After a wonderful Sunday evening spent lazing about mostly on Emil's couch, Lalli drowsing with his head in Emil's lap as Emil pretended to read a book but hardly ever turned a page, Monday had insisted on arriving. Emil had joked about calling in sick to work, but he had gone into the office because it was far more important than even another day with Lalli. Much more than another single day that was at stake, after all.

When the major arrived at headquarters for the day, Emil let her settle down and go through her latest notes before knocking on her office door and gently lowering his bombshell on her desk: he wanted to bring a Finnish mage onto his project this year. In Sweden. She watched him explain with impassive eyes, her expression giving no hint of what she thought of his plan, as he tried to explain the potential benefits and why it was worth trying. He cited how quickly the progress had gone in Finland the past summer, the complete lack of casualties and serious injuries, and finally resorted to "Besides, what would it hurt to try?"

When she sat back in her creaking leather and wooden chair, she looked him over for several excruciating seconds. Then at last she asked, "I take it this is not just a hypothetical proposal. Why are you bringing it up now?"

Emil refused to squirm beneath her gaze. "Because the mage in question is in Östersund at the moment, and I thought it might be worthwhile for you to meet him."

"And what is he doing in Östersund?"

"Visiting me." Emil didn't hesitate. "I've known Lalli since we went to Denmark together during the expedition into the Silent World."

The major took a slow, deep breath in through her nose, considering these words. Exact details of the expedition's failure had never been made public, but most people knew enough--if they had chosen to read the papers. A variety of sources had spilled what they overheard and witnessed when Emil and the others had been hospitalized upon their return. Anyone who put together the various reports could know that Emil and the remaining crew had made it back through some 200 kilometers of wilderness and death with only two members that had any real military training. And the major was intelligent enough to surmise that Lalli was the other party, who had helped Emil keep the survivors alive in a world infested with beasts and trolls.

"The scout?" she asked, not needing to say any more.

"Yes. Lalli is an experienced scout as well, and would not be a waste to have on any project for that skill alone." He leaned forward slightly in his chair. "But only considering what he can offer us as a scout would be a mistake." A muscle twitched in the major's cheek and Emil tacked on, "In my opinion, anyway. I think there is an opportunity here for us to test whether there might be something we can learn from our neighbors that would improve the way we do our projects."

Major Karlsson thought for several moments, the fingers of one hand tapping against the back of the other. "First let me meet this...mage of yours. I'm not going to even suggest that I approve of this plan without first knowing who it is I might be getting into bed with."

The effort to maintain a blank expression nearly broke Emil, but he managed to nod. Clearing his throat with a choked cough, he said, "Naturally. I'm sure he'd be happy to stop by whenever is good for you."

She narrowed her blue eyes slightly. "Wednesday then," she said, waving a hand at Emil to show that the interview was finished. "Talk to Nils about getting a time on my schedule. Make sure you secure at least an hour."

Considering how quiet things were in the office during these winter months, Emil had to wonder why she hadn't suggested a sooner time. He was afraid it meant that she wanted to do some poking around of her own to learn more about what it was Emil was proposing before she met with Lalli. No matter what attitude she approached the meeting with, though, he wasn't going to give up. He would do anything he possibly could to convince his fellow cleansers that Lalli was absolutely critical to the next year's project.

 

 

When he got home from work that day, he took the stairs two at a time until he arrived at the landing outside his door slightly out of breath and sweating in his thick winter jacket. He unlocked the door and shoved it open. The sight of Lalli curled up on his sofa, glancing up at him as though he had been expecting Emil for some time, nearly stopped his heart.

 _This._ This was what he wanted. A year ago he had been floundering, unsure of what he wanted to do with Anna and his life. But he knew without the slightest hesitation now that he wanted to share every day of the rest of his life with Lalli.

And so he went and stole a heart-pounding kiss before spinning away toward the kitchen to start something for dinner. Lalli got his vengeance by sneaking silently up behind him and distracting him by sliding a skilled hand beneath the warm layers of his winter clothes. When they finally got back to cooking, they stood side-by-side to prepare dinner. Emil gave instructions when Lalli was obviously unfamiliar with some of the cooking process, but it was easy to work together. Lalli roughly carved the skin off the potatoes with a small knife as Emil mixed the ground pork he had bought with spices and old bread crumbs to make meatballs. When Lalli was so intently focused on his task that he didn't even notice Emil staring at him, Emil ducked to the side and kissed the tip of his nose. Lalli brandished his knife.

Between mock squabbles, Emil retold his meeting with the major and they talked about the meeting to come. Lalli asked a few questions, but mostly let Emil relate anything he thought Lalli might need to know about how things worked in the Swedish cleansers' corps and what kind of person Major Karlsson was. He listened patiently as Emil mused about the possible outcomes he could imagine. He chewed his meatballs as Emil reviewed a mental list of the cleansers who had been impressed by the mages' work in Eno the previous years. He let Emil talk his way through his nerves until Emil ran all out of words, and then he led Emil away from the table to the bedroom, and Emil was all too happy to accept the distraction.

 

 

Coming home Tuesday evening once again stopped Emil's heart, but for a different reason this time. He could see from the street that his rooms were dark and he hurried up the stairs in even more haste than the day before.

"Lalli?" He was calling out the name before he got through the door, but the apartment was clearly empty. He didn't bother fighting his way out of his boots, walking gingerly to the bedroom door to be sure that Lalli wasn't simply taking a nap or anything. The bed was unoccupied, as was the bathroom. Emil looked around the dark room in bewilderment, his pulse quickening. Could something have happened? Had Lalli found something in his apartment that could have made him feel like he had to leave? The place was clean, though. There shouldn't have been anything that would make Lalli think Emil had backslid into bad habits. Something else then?

Emil gave the room a second, more thorough examination. It was on the second look that he noticed the scrap of paper on his mother's writing desk. Forgetting entirely that he was still wearing sodden boots and dripping melting snow all over his floors, he hurried to it and flipped on the desk lamp to read the scrawl.  _Going to that park by the water. The weird one with all the people. Should be back before you, but just in case._

A strangled laugh was the only sound in the shadowed room.  _So this is what life with Lalli will be like_ , Emil thought to himself. He could get used to it. It was no surprise to him that Lalli would feel perfectly confident going off in a strange city in a foreign country on his own. It wasn't like he'd really expected Lalli to stay cooped in his apartment day in and day out with nothing to do with himself. And he knew Lalli needed nature like Emil needed his morning coffee.

"I should probably just be glad he thought to leave a note," Emil muttered to himself as clattered down the stairs of his building. He set back out on the dark streets, taking the most direct route in the hope that he would run into Lalli if the Finn happened to have turned back already. But he didn't spot Lalli until he reached Badhusparken, and even then he only noticed the slight figure on the shore on his third rushed circuit of the park.

"Lalli!" he called out as he jogged across the icy shoreline.

Lalli looked up at him, a picture of surprise. He turned away to glance up at the sky, apparently judging the position of the moon and stars.  _My night scout_ , Emil thought with affection. Lalli got to his feet, slapping away the snow that clung to tail of his jacket.

"I'm sorry." His voice revealed his consternation, even if it hadn't been painted all over his face. "I didn't notice at all that it had gotten so late."

Emil tugged one glove off to touch the chilled skin of Lalli's exposed face. It was as cold as the ground underfoot. "It's fine," he said, slipping his hand back into his glove and then linking his arm around one of Lalli's. "Just try to lose track of time someplace a bit warmer next time, maybe."

Lalli snorted, falling into step with his arm still trapped against Emil's.

"Everything okay?" Emil asked as they began tracking back the few blocks to Emil's apartment building. Lalli nodded silently, and Emil jostled him slightly. "Were you worried about tomorrow?"

Blinking, Lalli turned an owlish look on him. "Well, now I might be."

Emil laughed. "You wouldn't be the only one, if you were worried." Their shoulders rubbed together as they walked. "But as weird as it sounds, I'm not really worried about what happens."

Lalli had a dubious expression, and Emil couldn't help snorting again. "I'm worried about facing the major, just because that woman always makes me feel like I've walked in the door while somehow forgetting to wear any pants. But no matter how things go with her tomorrow, I'm not worried about what will happen with you and me." Lalli's little hum made it sound like he was considering Emil's words, so Emil kept going. "We are going to be all right. We've been through worse."

"Worse than trying to convince a nation of secular non-believers the value of magic?"

"I'd say so."

Lalli smiled his crooked little smile. "You're probably right."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still alive! And not even hit by a car or anything--unless that car was called life. Work slowed down--and then quickly jumped right off the scale again into inhuman levels of business. And then this past month. Yeah, this past month has just been...what it has been. Every night that I did get a bit of time to myself, I found myself obsessively reading the news to see what record low had been achieved that day. But now I'm in Canada for a week, so here is to wish-fulfillment and happy times! At least everything can perhaps work out in one fictional dystopian future!


	30. Almost Over (Interlude)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Don't you get the picture yet?_  
>  _Why you getting all upset?_  
>  _The worst part's almost over_  
>  \- Almost Over, Elliot Smith

**Interlude**

 

The children playing in the park were still bizarre to Lalli. He watched them shriek and run, reminded of half-forgotten days in Saimaa when he'd been young. He hadn't usually taken part in such games, but he remembered seeing them happen.

There were undoubtedly children living in the civilian areas of Keuruu as well, but Lalli hardly saw any. If he wasn't outside the walls or sleeping during the day, then he was within the military quarters. The only children found there were young trainees, like he had once been, and they were not encouraged to laugh or shriek.

The sun had already dropped below the horizon for the day, but there were large yellowish streetlights that illuminated the park enough that the children could still play even in the winter. Lalli knew he should head back to the apartment. Emil would be coming back soon. The thought made him want to smile. His brief experience so far of living with Emil in this city was different again to what they had shared in Denmark or in Finland, but it was good. As long as he could come and go as he liked when he needed to get out of the city, this might really work.

It was less clear to him what it might be like to be the only mage in the Swedish army, though. Would he have to do something flashy yet again to stop any sniggers and jokes? At least the Swedes who had come to Eno the year before had grudgingly accepted that the Finnish mages _might_ have had something to do with keeping them safe from attacks. That was a start. But Lalli knew that he might be setting himself up for years of fighting against the scorn of the general Swedish population. Attempting to be a mage here would guarantee him none of the respect that he could command at home.

He could call himself a scout and leave it at that, but Lalli saw no sense in denying who he was or his gods' powers just because the Swedes weren't yet ready to accept either. The Swedes were no different really than the Norwegians or the Finnish. They had once believed in their own gods as well, long ago. Was magic truly dead here, or was it just that no one even attempted it?

Lalli hadn't really considered that possibility before. Out of curiosity, he summoned a shade of his luonto. The ghostly lynx rubbed against his shin, looking up at him as if to ask what they were doing in this strange place. Lalli sent it off to scamper among the children who were climbing up huge snow structures and sliding down their icy sides. He watched to see what would happen. At first it seemed as though it might have been a waste of power, but then he saw one little girl pause and turn. Her eyes followed the lynx as though she could see the apparition trotting past her.

Maybe there was hope for Sweden yet. If they could bring their electric fences and technology to Finland, perhaps he could bring magic back to Sweden in return. 

"Lalli?"

He whirled about. He had not expected to hear his name called out in a city he had no ties to. It was a small town, though, so perhaps he shouldn't be surprised to have already run into the one other person living here who might know his name.

"Anna," he said, acknowledging the woman with a wary nod. He'd found it as impossible to forget her name as it must have been for her to forget his. Her lovely eyes were shadowed by eyebrows that furrowed together as she looked at him as though she weren't entirely sure he wasn't a nightmare.

"It really is you, isn't it?" Her voice was a quiet murmur, as if she was talking to herself more than him. "That hair of yours--it's rather hard to miss."

He waited, still not daring to speak until he knew how she was going to react. It had been a year since she and Emil had broken up, he knew that much. But had it been a year spent moving on--or a year spent cursing his name and memory?

The Swedish woman tucked her gloved hands into the pockets of her coat. "Are you here visiting Emil?" she asked, her voice and face carefully neutral. When he nodded, though, there was a flash of something like hurt in her dark eyes. But she lowered them before he could see anything more. "I hope...he's doing well. Have a happy jul."

She started to step away and he could have let her go like that, but he felt an odd twinge of sympathy. Once he had hated her because she'd had Emil and he had not, but all he could summon for her now was pity. She had not taken Emil from him then--Emil had never been his. But now Emil _was_ his, and Lalli had in fact stolen him Emil from this unhappy woman.

"Anna," he said again, and she stopped at the soft sound of her name. "I'm sorry."

The complicated look that she gave him made him think that she couldn't decide if she should appreciate the gesture or curse him for it.

Lalli sighed. "Emil is doing all right now. But he wasn't for a long time. Last winter was...not easy on him." He searched the face that had turned up to look at him for any hint of sympathy, not sure if his words were helping or hurting. "He was a mess for a long time."

"Why are you telling me this?"

His eyes slid away. He didn't like having to see the hurt confusion on her face. He felt he owed her something, but this wasn't the kind of social quagmire that he knew how to navigate. "I wouldn't want you to think that it was easy for him. The way things ended."

"And you imagine it was easy for me?" There at last was the heat of anger. Lalli flinched.

"No. I don't imagine that at all." He forced himself to meet her eyes again.

Anna's lower lip trembled and she had to twist her mouth into a hard line to keep the weakness hidden from him. "I really can't believe this," she said, eyes boring into his and pinning him on the spot. "Am I just supposed to stand here and talk to you, like you didn't sleep with my boyfriend and ruin everything we had?"

Lalli shook his head. "No. You're welcome to hate me. You can ignore me or walk away or slap me."

At his invitation, she did. Her hand was covered in a thick glove and so the muffled sound didn't travel far in the noisy din of the park. No one looked around or seemed to have noticed, and it hadn't even hurt all that much thanks to the cloth covering her hand. He nodded, not taking his own hands out of his pockets to rub at the smarting skin of his cheek. "But I hope that you find someone even better for you than Emil. I hope that someday you will find that things ending with him was meant to happen so they could begin with the right person."

The woman's face crumpled into unhappy bewilderment, and Lalli wished he knew how to be charming and reassuring like Emil did. "I was...raised to believe that fate is inescapable. But I believe that the gods do their best to steer us toward the path we should walk, though it is not always a gentle or kind journey. I hope you are on your way to your true path. I want to believe that we did not truly ruin your life, though I know that Emil has worried that he did."

He had no enmity toward Anna any longer. Lalli knew he hadn't been all that kind to her a year before. He had been jealous and spiteful, and he deserved to have those same feelings turned back upon him now.

She took a step back, retreating. But her voice was oddly soft when she murmured, "You didn't. My life is my own." Cocking her head to the side, her eyes searched his face. "Are you going to be staying here? In Östersund?"

Lalli nodded. "Hopefully. Things are still...undecided."

Anna began to turn away, but kept her gaze trained on him. "Then I suppose I will be seeing you around. And maybe that won't be as bad as I might have thought." A bemused smile flickered across her face. "Good-bye, Lalli."

He raised a hand in mute farewell as she nodded absently and left. Long after she had gone, he continued pondering the strange meeting and wondering if he had read it correctly. A relationship this complicated went far beyond anything he had experience with but he thought--he might be wrong but he  _thought_ \--that perhaps someday Anna would forgive them. Perhaps she had already begun.

"Lalli!"

And here was Emil, jogging toward him under the black evening sky, his boots crunching across the snow and his hot breath billowing around his face. Lalli noticed the stars for the first time and searched the familiar constellations, charting their positions to judge the time. They twinkled down at him, the sky not all that different from the one he had grown up under in Finland. The stars would keep spinning. The gods would keep watch. He would find his own way, with their blessing, and do what he could to work their magic on this land and its people. And Lalli would be happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little extra something, because it's fun to visit Lalli's head again.


	31. Happiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _What I used to be will pass away and then you'll see_  
>  _That all I want now is happiness for you and me_  
>  _What I used to be will pass away and then you'll see_  
>  _That all I want now is happiness for you and me_  
>  \- Happiness, Elliott Smith

**30**

 

Emil curled his toes inside his boots as he stood outside the front door of the headquarters, scanning the empty street before him. It was still ten minutes till two, but he had already been waiting for five minutes. His nerves hadn't been able to take sitting in the captains' office a moment longer.

Lalli had flatly refused Emil's offer to go back to the apartment and meet him to walk over together. Emil knew that he would find his way without any difficulty. Lalli could probably find his way from here to Luleå. Blindfolded. But it was still hard for Emil to stand still and simply wait for the Finn to make his way to the headquarters, imagining him walking the familiar streets of Östersund on his own. What if something went wrong? What if he got nervous and decided not to come? What if...

And _there_ was an unmistakable figure coming down the road toward him. Emil set off down the concrete steps, clattering his way toward Lalli as the mage strode down Infanterigatan.

"You made it!" Emil exclaimed, once there were only a dozen meters between them.

Lalli gave him an odd look. "Of course. It is a barely five blocks from your apartment to here."

Emil waited for him to close the distance between them, then fell into step to pace alongside Lalli toward the headquarters. "You ready for this?"

Lalli shrugged, following Emil up the stairs again and into the building that Emil hoped would maybe someday become as familiar to the mage as it was to him. Lalli had said nothing more by the time they had arrived in front of the major's office and Emil nodded to the secretary sitting out front. The young man got up and slipped into the office for a moment before coming out again to wave them in.

When Emil turned around to glance at Lalli, he saw that the Finn had shrugged out of his heavy outdoor jacket. Beneath it, he was dressed in a tunic similar to the type Emil was used to seeing him wear in Finland. But this one was different from those he'd seen Lalli wear to work in. They had been of rough-spun material, hardy and practical. This one was made of a smoother, snowy white material, with edging stitched in brilliant red thread. Even that small red band around the neck and hems made this perhaps the most colorful outfit he had ever seen Lalli wear. Emil wondered if it were some sort of dress uniform. His ash blond hair and grey eyes looked even paler in contrast.

They walked into the major's office and at her gesture, they took their seats side by side. Major Karlsson leaned over her desk and folded her hands together as she studied the pair of them.

"So," she began, leaping straight into the conversation, "Mr. Hotakainen. Thank you for coming in to speak with me. I understand that our captain thinks you can offer something that we lack here in Sweden."

Lalli didn't move at first. He blinked slowly and then said, "No. I have seen Swedish cleansers in action. I worked alongside Emil when he was nineteen and just barely out of training. Your cleansers are well-trained, hardworking, and able."

The major's eyebrows climbed with each adjective. "Then what is it that you would add to the process?"

"A better chance at keeping them unharmed, so that they can continue to be well-trained, hardworking, and able."

She settled back in her chair with a bark of laughter, eyes moving between Emil and Lalli. Several moments passed in silence. At last she murmured, "Well, I am glad at least that you are as fluent in Swedish as I had heard. If nothing else, you could help us this summer with interpreting."

Lalli's lips tightened slightly as Emil watched, but his voice gave away none of his annoyance as he replied, "I could. And I would be happy to. But I could also do much more if given the chance."

"Magic tricks?"

The question was offered in a flat tone, and Emil wondered what had happened over the past two days. She hadn't been as antagonistic when he'd first brought the idea up to her. What kinds of questions had she been asking, and what kinds of answers had she gotten? It wouldn't surprise him to find out that asking about Finnish mages might have been met with scorn, and Major Karlsson was not the type of woman who liked being laughed at.

Hesitating over whether he should speak up or allow Lalli to represent himself, the choice was taken out of his hands by Lalli answering with the same remote calm. "Training that allows me to identify threats from a safe distance. You can call that whatever you'd like, as long as it works."

"As long as it works," Major Karlsson repeated under her breath.

"It seems to have worked this past summer. There is an opportunity this summer to test if that was a fluke or not." Lalli didn't even fidget in his chair, acting unbothered by the doubt that was being shoveled upon him. "At any other time, it would be hard to explain having a Finnish mage join a Swedish project. But next year you will have nearly a hundred Finnish cleansers joining in the work. It's possible the Finnish members might insist on having one of their mages around, for their peace of mind."

The major's eyes did not move away from Lalli's face for several painful moments, but then something in her face shifted. "Yes, I can see how that might happen." She look at last in Emil's direction. "Does that also seem likely to you, Captain, from your experience this past year?"

Emil had to remember to close his mouth. He was pretty sure it had been hanging open. "Uh, yes. I think I _have_ heard grumblings about working without one of their mages present." Which was a complete lie of course, but it seemed to be what she wanted to hear. He hoped he was right. "I imagine they will be able to focus on the task better with a mage around to watch their backs. The Finns are quite, um, superstitious, you know. "

He did not dare glance at Lalli. Major Karlsson cocked an eyebrow and said, "I might have expected you to lead with that fact when you first came to talk to me about this issue. From the sound of things, it appears that the Finnish half of the workforce is quite dependent on their religious figures, like Mr. Hotakainen here. If one additional member added to the project will allow them to do their work at the standard that we expect, then it seems like an easy enough concession to make."

While Emil was still struck dumb, Lalli broke in to propose, "And if it is a success, if there are no serious injuries or deaths over the length of this year's project, then would you agree to a longer trial?" He did not flinch away from either of the Swedish stares that were leveled at him. "Would you be willing to consider someone like me becoming a regular part of the cleansing process here in Sweden? For the safety of your crews?"

"Someone like you? Or you specifically?"

Lalli was silent for a moment. "Me specifically." At last his eyes darted to Emil's for an instant, before he returned them to the major's face. "I'm interested in staying in Sweden. I have valuable skills to contribute to your office. All I ask is for the chance to prove that to you."

Major Karlsson drummed her fingers on the top of her desk. The noise finally stopped when she flattened her hand on the wood top with a decisive slam. "If you turn out to be as unrelenting in the face of the beasts as you have been here today, then I don't see why I shouldn't at least consider it."

 

 

They walked back to the front doors of the cleansers' headquarters in a sort of hushed silence, as if they were both afraid that a stray word would somehow undo the minor miracle that had just occurred. Emil glanced at Lalli at his side, and the observant scout noticed the motion as he always did, his gray eyes flickering up to meet Emil's blue ones. He gave Emil a faint smile, and the Swede felt a grin spreading across his own face. Still without a word, he leaned to the side to nudge Lalli. The physical contact seemed to break whatever spell had been over them since they had left Major Karlsson's office.

"I'll go back ahead of you then," Lalli remarked as the drew nearer to the doors.

Though the daylight had already fled, it was still not even three in the afternoon. So Emil nodded. "Yeah, I should stay till four at least. But I'll be back as soon as I can."

"No problem." Lalli shrugged. "Do you want me to go by the market, buy something on the way home?"

Maybe Lalli only meant "home" to refer to the place that he was staying. Maybe he would have called any hotel or random lodging "home" in the same way. But Emil was more than willing to let himself believe that Lalli truly meant it. That the apartment on Regemensgatan might already be home to Lalli in some way, and that it would truly be a home they could share together.

Did the look he leveled at Lalli perhaps give away some of what was going on in his mind? Emil guessed that it might, because Lalli dropped his gaze, turning to the door. There seemed to be a reddish stain on his sharp cheekbones, if the sallow electric light of the hallway could be trusted.

"That would be wonderful," Emil said, stepping in closer. A soft laugh escaped him, verging on giddy. "Now I can to entertain myself for the last hour of work imagining what I might come home to." He caught one thin hand, running a thumb over Lalli's knuckles for a moment that was there and then gone in a flash. "Get whatever you'd like. But...please. No peas."

Lalli snorted with laughter, his eyes glittering with humor when they flashed back to Emil's face. Emil grimaced. "You're making me really want to skip out on the rest of my work day."

The complaint got him a whack on the arm. "Do your job properly, you lazy Swede." But Lalli's lips were definitely curving up at the corners. "You had better not expect me to come here and work for your army so that you can get yourself fired."

And Emil couldn't help himself, even if he was still standing in the middle of a public hallway in a building filled with his coworkers. He slid his hands around Lalli's hips, settling them against the small of his back so he could draw their bodies closer together. "I don't expect anything. I only hope and pray. Now get out of here before I do something stupid that would jeopardize my claim that I only want you on my project for the good of the Swedish Cleansers' Corp."

Lalli slipped out of his hold, rolling his eyes as he turned and pushed upon the front door. He held it propped open with one foot as he shoved his arms into his heavy jacket once more. "Someday, Emil, you are going to have to learn some control."

"Someday, Lalli," Emil promised, "I will succeed in making you lose yours."

Pulling his hood up as he stepped away and let the door go, Lalli threw back, "You already do." Then the door fell shut and Emil was left to count down the minutes until he could leave to follow after him.

 

 

There was no sign of the Finn in the living room when Emil got home, though there was a whiff of fresh bread that hadn't been in the room when Emil had left that morning. He ducked around the kitchen wall to spy a loaf wrapped up to stay moist. Lalli's voice came from behind him, as the other man called out from the bedroom.

Emil padded to the open door to his bedroom and stopped in the doorway, surprised to see Lalli had emptied the pack that he had brought with him onto the bed. He seemed to be sorting the clothes into two piles.

"What are you up to?" Emil asked, leaning for a moment against the door frame.

"Getting ready for tomorrow." Lalli glanced up at him once. "We're still leaving for Mora as soon as you finish for the day, right?"

Emil went over to the opposite side of the bed, sitting and then flopping onto his back to stare upside-down at Lalli. He tucked his hands behind his head. "Yeah?"

Lalli carried on refolding his clothes and smoothed his hands over the top of one pile. "I was thinking," he said, "I might as well leave some things here. " His eyes met Emil's with unflinching directness. "It will mean less I have to bring later."

Rolling over in a quick move, Emil clambered to his knees so that he could crawl across the mattress to the side where Lalli stood. It didn't matter that he was messing up the piles Lalli had just carefully made. Emil grabbed the Finn by his nice tunic and dragged him down onto the bed with him, catching him in a tight hug.

"Of course. Leave as much as you want to here. Leave everything here." _Leave yourself here and never go away again_ , he thought, though he didn't say the words. He wouldn't make this any harder for Lalli, who was already talking about giving up so much to be here with him.

"Did I tell you yet how amazing you were today?" he asked, nuzzling at Lalli's neck through the long hair that was loose at the moment, barely contained by being tucked behind Lalli's ears. "You're always amazing, of course, but this has been a extra special demonstration."

He was half teasing, but it was true. Working in Finland, Emil had gotten glimpses of Lalli in his element: unwavering, determined, and in-charge. It had been gratifying; when they had been gathering those damn books in Denmark, those glimpses had been a rare thing. A snappish command when heading into troll territory, a steely look that forgave no argument when sneaking silently through a crumbling building, a flawless spell pulled off with grace and absolute certainty. But Lalli had now learned that he could stand his ground even when it didn't come to scouting or trolls. He still accepted orders, but he also had the confidence to give them when the situation called for it.

"You didn't," Lalli pointed out. "But you still have plenty of time tonight to fix that." Emil chuckled, already busy trying to pull apart the knot in Lalli's tunic belt with one hand. "So are your aunt and uncle expecting us at their house tomorrow?"

"Why?" Emil asked, his mind already moving rapidly away from the conversation.

"I was just thinking of how the sleeping arrangements might work. With all your cousins."

Emil's brain sluggishly fired back up as he appreciated for the first time the lack of privacy at his aunt and uncle's house. That thought was quickly followed by the realization that neither had any idea Lalli would even be arriving at their house with him the next night. And especially no idea why the two of them might be arriving together.

"Well,  _shit_." Emil's heartfelt curse was followed by a laugh. "I guess we'd better make the most of tonight then."

 

 

"Aunt Siv! Torbjörn! Demons!"

Emil held his arms out wide, welcoming his cousins' attack as they leapt upon him. They did so with particular enthusiasm after the insult. Sune was the first among the trio to notice Lalli lurking behind Emil, and he gave up on wedging his fingers under Emil's jacket so that he could elbow his siblings with an insistent whisper. Once they realized what he was staring at, their hands stilled and were pulled slowly away from Emil's person.

"The magic one is back," they breathed in awe.

"Are you staying here, too?" Sune asked, his huge eyes trained on the Finn.

"Only for tonight," Emil explained, beginning to unwind his scarf now that he had no young teens hanging from his arms. "Lalli has a hotel booked from tomorrow."

"Noooooo!" The children wailed.

"And I'll be going with him, so you've only got me for tonight, as well." This statement was met with blank stares, unlike the despair they'd shown for Lalli, and Emil gave a mock growl.

"Oh, I see how it is! My loving cousins have all thrown me over, just because Lalli is amazing and can do magic and is better in every possible way, is that it?" While his cousins were still blinking in surprise, Emil set upon them to return several years' worth of tickles and torture. The trio got over their initial shock quick enough to dart away, shrieking as Emil thundered after them through the large Mora house.

When he came back to the hallway some minutes later, wheezing slightly, he found Lalli making polite conversation with his aunt and uncle. Siv was just insisting that of course Lalli could stay over tonight--and for as many nights as he'd like if he wanted to cancel his hotel room.

Lalli's gaze flickered to Emil for a moment as he declined. "That's very kind, but the hotel is already booked, so..."

"Oh, are you sure you can't get a refund? We have plenty of space. You and Emil could both stay here the week."

"There is plenty of space here, yes," Emil agreed as he stepped up to Lalli's side, his heart pounding harder than it been while chasing his cousins. "But that's not why we're keeping the hotel room." He swallowed, them explained in a rush, "I want to be able to spend as much time with Lalli as I can while he's here. Because he and I are actually...a thing now. And I'm pretty useless without him, and I've missed him terribly, and I'd really sort of like to have him all to myself a bit. But I promise I'll share better in the future." Emil took a sharp breath, sucking the air in after the rush of words and flashing a smile at Lalli. "There should be enough time for that, because he's coming back to Sweden next year, too."

When Emil dared turned back to his aunt and uncle, he found them both apparently struck speechless. Torbjörn looked back and forth between him and Lalli as if trying to solve some sort of baffling equation. A sort of narrow understanding was dawning in Siv's eyes, though. "Suddenly," she said, "a lot of things about the past year seem a lot clearer."

"They do?" Her husband looked at her in bewilderment as he asked, "How exactly? I'm finding that suddenly very little seems clear to me."

Siv threw her hands up in the air with a frustrated sigh, which her husband took in stride. Nodding, he agreed in a mild tone, "Yes, yes, dear, I know--I'm hopeless. Now explain to me why."

She continued to pointedly ignore him, keeping her penetrating stare fixed on Emil. "You were miserable when we saw you last winter. You told me you weren't sure what you wanted anymore. Now I realize that that all came about at quite the same time that this young man happened to come back into your life." She tipped her head in Lalli's direction. "Suddenly you were breaking up with your girlfriend of several years and disappearing for months without a word and volunteering for overseas projects that you've never had any interest in before. Then you come back from half a year in Finland as the most thoughtful correspondent you've been in...well, the entire fifteen years that I've known you. You've been quite the different person these past couple months."

Emil's own smile had been growing the entire time that she spoke. He looked at Lalli and saw a smirk playing about that familiar mouth. He must have known that he'd changed Emil's life the moment he'd appeared back in it, but he didn't seem averse to being reminded again.

Siv stepped forward and put a hand on each of their shoulders, including Lalli in her speech just as much as Emil. "I'm happy for you both." Her left hand slid up to cup Emil's cheek. "I'm glad to see you looking so content. I don't know when's the last time I did." She curled her other hand around Lalli's thin neck, and the mage accepted the touch even if he was holding himself carefully still. "Thank you, Lalli, for bringing Emil back to us. Twice now."

The mage nodded in silence, his large grey eyes luminous and awed in the electric light of the hall. 

 

 

They were waiting for the train to slow to a stop in Björköfjärden, standing side-by-side in the small compartment just inside the door. Emil's shoulder bumped into Lalli's as the train juddered from the force of the breaks being applied and he didn't pull away. Lalli snorted to himself, elbowing Emil pointedly.

"What?" Emil asked, leaning even further into the slender man beside him. "I'm tired. I don't think I can stand on my own."

"Useless without me, I believe is what you said yesterday."

Emil let out a bark of laughter. He'd mostly forgotten what he'd said in that panicky rush and hadn't expected to have the words thrown back in his face. "I doubt you're going to try to pretend otherwise. We both know it's true."

The door before them slid open and Lalli jumped lightly down to the muddy ground outside, leaving Emil to pitch over when the support suddenly disappeared from beneath his shoulder. He caught himself with a hand on the cool metal doorframe and looked up to see Lalli holding a hand out to him. He took it and let Lalli pull him forward off the train. The light breaking through the heavy white clouds was blinding, but the hand in his was steady and warm.

"Still, I think you should know," Emil pointed out, his fingers tightening on Lalli's as he leaned closer to speak in a low voice to the mage leading the way across the lonely town, "that while it may be true that I'm useless without you, it is also _your fault_ that I'm so tired. I couldn't sleep a wink because the person I'm hopelessly in love with was right beside me all night and I couldn't do a thing about it."

Lalli's cheeks picked up a pink hue that no dawn glow could explain because there was nothing rosy about the clouded sky that hung heavily over the port. Still, he didn't shake free of Emil's grip as they strode hand-in-hand toward the ferry terminal. Emil only let go when Lalli began tugging him toward the towering set of stairs that led up to the arrivals lobby. "But there's an elevator!" he protested, gesturing toward the machine that he himself had overlooked on his first visit to this very ferry terminal.

The look that Lalli leveled at him said more than words could, then the Finn spun on his heel and began up the stairs, taking them two at a time with his long, thin legs. Emil heaved a sigh and began to follow him at a much slower pace. As he went, he grumbled under his breath, "I'm going to be useless  _to_ you as well tonight, when I can't even walk to the hotel because my legs have turned to jelly."

By the time he made it up to the arrivals lobby several minutes after Lalli and shoved his way into the warmer air inside, he found that Tuuri had already made it off the boat and she must have made a beeline straight for Lalli. She had her arms clamped around his waist and a blissful smile on her face at being reunited with the only member of her family who never felt the need to lecture her or criticize her decisions. Lalli had a familiar look of suffering on his face, and the whole scene reminded Emil of any number he had witnessed whenever the two Hotakainens had been reunited during the expedition to Denmark.

He walked up to the two of them and Tuuri broke into an even brighter smile--if such a thing were possible. "Emil!" She finally let go of Lalli so that she could hurry across the small space between them and engulf his lower half in a crushing hug as well. He looked down at the top of her head and grinned.

"Glad you made it at last, slowpoke," he teased as he worked to loosen the death-grip she had around his back. "Did you have to send Lalli to scout the way for you in advance?"

She shoved him away with a strangled laugh-shout. "No! He practically snuck away without telling me! I only found out what he was planning the night he left, when he came by my place to 'let me know' that he wouldn't be coming on this ferry with me because he was  _leaving in an hour._ " She shot a glare at her cousin, but it wobbled and collapsed back into a smile again within moments as she squealed and hugged him again. Then she reached out a hand to grab Emil and drag him into the embrace as well, sandwiching herself between her fellow survivors.

Tuuri's voice was muffled as it drifted up between them, but that probably wasn't why it sounded so thick and scratchy. "I'm so glad I have the both of you and that you both get to be happy. You deserve it and I love you both and I think I'm really going to like this."

"Like what exactly?" Emil asked in amusement, glancing at Lalli over her bowed head. The mage raised an eyebrow with an expression that clearly said  _Don't expect me to explain her._

 _"This!"_ Tuuri shook her head, burying her face in their jackets and still refusing to look up or meet anyone's eyes. "Spending every jul in Sweden with the two of you!"

"You're spending every jul here?" Emil had to be the one to ask because Lalli was still keeping himself out of the conversation. He had moved onto rolling his eyes toward the ceiling, in fact.

"Well, nothing against my brother, but I'd much rather spend the holiday here with Lalli than in Keuruu with Onni. Besides, I'm hardly ever going to get to see Lalli now! Maybe I should find a job in Sweden, too. I mean I'm definitely going to talk to Teemu  about coming over to help with project organization next year, but I mean maybe I should look into moving  _permanently_ , too..."

"Tuuri!" Lalli interrupted her flood of words with a grumpy string of Finnish that, if Emil had to guess, probably meant something to the effect of "Would you  _shut up?"_

"Permanently?" Emil repeated, not having missed the last bit that Tuuri had said. He fixed his eyes on Lalli, who seemed to be intentionally keeping his own eyes averted. "So you'd already told Tuuri that you were planning to move here forever? Not just visiting? Not just trying to come for this one project?"

Lalli looked sulky as he tried to detangle himself from Tuuri. "I'm pretty sure I told your major the same thing. Though I don't think I ever used the word 'forever.'"

Before Lalli could get too far, Emil caught him and yanked him close enough to loop his arms across the shoulders that the Finn had hunched up protectively. "I'm pretty sure it sounds like you did."

Tuuri had been left out of this hold but she was beaming at the two of them, her hands close up under her chin as she mimed silent applause at the sight of her cousin blushing. He was definitely blushing this time. He huffed in annoyance and asked Emil, "Are you going to learn Finnish and move to Keuruu, where there are no cafés or ridiculous parks, and where you can't be on a train to a major city in just hours and are lucky to get coffee a couple of times a month?"

"God no. Please don't make me."

"Well then, since I think we've already agreed you're useless without me..."

"I am. Please don't leave me."

Lalli's second huff was silenced by Emil catching his mouth in a chaste kiss as they stood in the crowded ferry terminal and Tuuri squealed in delight.

 

 

When they were all sitting down to dinner that night at the Västerströms' well-worn table--nearly a year after Emil had first collapsed into the same chair and leaned into Lalli and been confronted with everything that was wrong with his life--there was a tussle among the three youngest Västerströms. After some hissing and whispered threats, it appeared that Sune was nominated as their unlucky spokesperson.

"So, Emil." The boy's eyes had been trained on the wood grain of the table, but they darted up for a moment to sneak a peek at the man who had been his playmate since he was a toddler. "Hakan heard you say that you and Mr. Mage are a 'thing.' What's that supposed to mean?"

Tuuri snorted into her glass of beer and Torbjörn drained his dry. Emil opened his mouth and found that the first words that came out were a mildly affronted "Mr. Mage?  _Mr._ Mage? How come Lalli gets a title and I don't?" 

Sune looked at his siblings and they shrugged, giving him a pair of matching glares that insisted he not be distracted now. They didn't have to bother, though, as Emil found that he had a pretty good idea what he should say and that he actually wanted to say it.

"What it means, Sune, is that I love Lalli, and he's very good for me. He's been my best friend for as long as I've known him, and yes, now he is more than that, too." His face was hot but that didn't stop him from pushing onward. It didn't hurt that Lalli had tucked a thin hand along the edge of his thigh, where no one else needed to see it under the table. "So yes, I love him like your mom and dad love each other. Men can love other men--and I guess women can love other women for that matter. And somehow, even after all the torture you've put me through, I still love all of you as well." He pulled a face. "Though not like  _that._ Sorry, but I have certain standards." Little Anna looked at her two brothers' dumbfounded expressions and snickered.

"So get used to having him around, because I don't plan to let him go and that basically makes him your cousin as well. And 'Mr. Mage' likes me, too, against all odds. Remember _that_ the next time you're trying to wedge your fingers in my ears or you might end up cursed." Emil grinned, waggling his fingers in a mock threat, and he was glad to see some of the tension leave his younger cousins. Lalli even let him enjoy his moment without scolding him for the gross misrepresentation of his religion. Though he did seem to be muttering something disparaging under his breath. Luckily it was in Finnish, so Emil could pretend that he hadn't noticed.

Torbjörn cleared his throat awkwardly and raised his refilled glass. "Well! I suppose that deserves a toast."

Before he could make one, his wife cut him off by shoving her glass out in front of his and declaring, "To Emil and Lalli, who finally figured out what they wanted!"

"I always knew," Lalli grumbled. But then he smirked sidelong at Emil and lifted his glass.

"To a bright future together," Tuuri chipped in, knocking her glass into Lalli's with a chiming sound.

Emil looked at the heavy glass in his hand, the golden liquid within it gleaming warmly in the light that shone down upon them all at the dinner table. He looked around the glowing faces that ranged about the table: the family he had been born into and the family that he had found for himself. Finally he glanced at the familiar photo on the wall, whose twin now hung in his own apartment, and Emil smiled.

"To Sigrun and Mikkel," Emil said, his glass joining theirs in the middle of the group. "For giving us that future."

And they all drank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it took so long! And is probably full of typos, but damn it if I didn't want to just post this already as soon as I finished drafting it. 
> 
> Already I've spent sleepless nights, when I couldn't get my brain to shut off after stupidly long work days and the sleeping pills hadn't kicked in yet, imagining random scenes from what their next project together might look like. But I'm not going to commit to anything more now, because crazy busy work schedule is going to continue till November at least. Crunch time has become all the time, but I can't complain because having too much of a job is surely better than no job. Sooo...my past days of glory when I could dash off whole stories at a time are about as far out of reach to me now as the elusive concept of "work-life balance," but I've had so much fun doing this! Thank you all for your delightful support! If I ever do get sidetracked into writing out a random scene here or there, you know I'll be posting it here. :)
> 
> Happiness, friends. That's all I want for you and me.


End file.
